We just got back from Bombay, having attended a workshop on "Creating Content for Children" at the IDC at IIT Bombay. When Monty (Raja Mohanty) invited us, it seemed that it would be really interesting; and so it turned out to be... A get-together of so many people doing so many interesting things. It was quite overwhelming to see the work of so many creative people.

We staged Macavity; for the first time outside Thekambattu, and so The Thekambattu Travelling Theatre became a reality. Then with great enthusiasm on the part of Swati, Nitin and Roma, students at IDC, we helped produce "Catch that Crocodile" as a shadow puppet show. That was performed to a packed house.

And a rather noisy audience: Actually a few rowdy kids  kept up an insistent cat-calling; luckily my voice rose to the occasion. Twenty years ago, I might have stopped the show to throttle the kids: Alas! for the respectability of age...

The boys, each in his own way thoroughly enjoyed the workshop (and the IIT-B campus), though except for Rahi, they were the only children in a sea of adults.

Badri, literally, kick-started the workshop by knocking over a few of the "inauguration" diyas. Then he settled into doing his own work, attending some of the sessions, and working in  a group with Ajit Rao and others. He also showed  a short clip of "The Sponge Cats go to Gegypt" and made  a neat presentation on its making starting with "Can everyone hear me?" and winding up with "Any questions?"

Varun hung around the venue with a chessboard, taught some people chess, played with others, played with the dogs and generally had a blast. He made his own arrangements for lunch with Siddharth and Srirang, and did not condescend to eat the workshop lunch. He suddenly woke up to his "responsibilities"  and gave Shilpa a hard time towards the end of the workshop; insisting that he finish his story, and that she scan his drawings, and what-not.

As for us, the time was too short to meet everyone and see all the work going on, but we managed by playing hooky amd leaving the puppet show production in the hands of Nitin, Swati and Roma at times.

All in all, a great workshop: the open-ended approach was  a success. It is difficult to approach such a workshop without pre-set goals and pre-conceived ideas, but the eclectic group of people assembled by Monty, Shilpa and others pulled it off.