My brush with the fuzz.

It was just another morning at St. Philomena’s Hospital. There I was, clowning merrily, when suddenly a stern policeman blocked my path, and informed me that I was wanted in the Administration department. (This turned out to be a lie).

I went peacefully (I did manage to tell the children and other patients to call my lawyer and my mummy as I went). Oddly enough, the policeman refused to handcuff me, no matter how much I insisted.

Finally, in the administration dept, I was able to explain. It was a simple case of miscommunication, or in this case, no communication. The police inspector turned out to be a security guard - the ward sister hadn't been informed about Dr Clown's visits, so when she saw Mamu and me clomping happily down her corridors, she thought, "Who on earth are these two clowns?" (literally!) and called Security!

All was sorted out amicably, once everyone knew that we had the approval of both the hospital director and the head of paediatrics. There were a few extra journeys up and down because the Security guard's colleagues hadn't been updated either, and so they refused to let us back in to the wards!

Being a lady of some leisure, I waited and blew bubbles at them, while Mamu chivalrously made these perilous trips back and forth to prove our innocence. Eventually we got back in, and the whole funny little mishap ended up making us all good buddies.

Unfortunately we've not had the opportunity to go clowning there since (I do hope they don't think we're sulking or scared off), as one week Mamu had a cold, one week we were tied up with rehearsals for our show, and then last week I had a bad stomach. (We don't go clowning if we have any such illnesses, so that there is “no risk of passing infections to sick children whose resistance is already compromised”, as the guidelines say).

But joy! Tomorrow is Tuesday, and we shall head back to St Phil's at 10.30 a.m!

Before the show.

Here are a few pix from rehearsals at the Alliance Francaise before our very first clown show. The first pic is of Biclown and me with the little French pixies who put on a wonderful acrobatic routine with Fabiola and Miss Rose on The Planet of Acrogaz.











Next we have Mamu looking very happy with his lady friends from the Planet of Fire! Fabiola (the pixies' leader) is second from right, and if your eyesight is better than mine, you'd already have noticed Miss Rose peeking in from behind.

Finally Miss Rose in one of her delightful specially tailored outfits (Calvin Klown, I think) with Eric, director of Alliance, a man who appears to be a sedate professional here, but later turned into an hilarious Crowd Checker at the show, armed with his feather duster to dust the heads of people in the audience after zooming around the stage and ramps on his bicycle and honking a wonderful bulb horn!

I must get me one of those horns. There was a time when every self-respecting auto rickshaw was equipped with one. Nowadays all the autos have those irritating hi-tech buttons that go "nyeet-nyeet-nyeet", and I do so miss the mellow "pwarrrrmp" of those old bulb horns.

Shaky but stirring.

Dr Mamoo is not the world's greatest photographer. But he does love taking pictures, so here you have - me, striking a Don pose with my friend Prashant, in honour of my boyfriend Shah Rukh Khan. (Some people say I ought to call him my "alleged" boyfriend, because he does not know that I exist. All I have to say to this is: YET. He does not know I exist YET. )



In the next picture, you can see me giving little Ashwita a laughter check with my stetho-ho-ho-scope. We don't usually take pictures at hospital but today Dr Mamoo was very trigger-happy and so I have these two blurry but good memories of a happy morning at the hospital!