NEWS: Photo feature - Indian Express

I'm a Page 3 girl! Or maybe it was page 33. Whatever .. I’m in the news and feeling quite pleased about it. This pic was taken at the Overseas Women's Foundation's Annual Bazaar on December 1st, 2007, held at the St Mark's Cathedral grounds. Dr Clown had a table there. Well, half a table. We set up shop with our wonderful 2008 calendar --- a rather delightful work of art, featuring photographs of all of us clowns - and our colourful postcards, as well as a couple of exotic cakes and muffins. We also had MUCH fun painting clown faces on lots of wonderful little children.

I had a WONDERFUL time. I wore my best new hat. In between painting faces and helping myself to clown cake, I tromped around the bazaar, meeting everyone and making lots of new friends. I also adopted two very nice puppets, a witch who now goes by the name "Mrs. Snape" and a little clown who is yet to be named (you can see him in the picture .. I have him by the neck).

I also got to have a mesmerising conversation with Basava, a large and extremely patient ox who was taking children on cart rides around the cathedral grounds. He was a quiet sort of ox. He didn't have much to say, but he turned out to be a very good listener.

Yes, it was a good day indeed. A nice nutritious clown lunch of cotton candy and something wonderful called a hog dog (which is made of neither pigs nor dogs). I even bumped into Santa Claus. Alas, I did not get a chance to sit on Santa's lap (that would have been quite a feat, as he was standing up at the time) but he did promise to send me Professor Snape for Christmas. I don’t want Professor Snape for myself, I’m a one-man clown, and that man is Shah Rukh Khan. But I know Nazu gets all weak in the knees whenever she sees Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies. I thought maybe I could hide him in her Christmas stocking for her.

The highlight of the day was when Dr. Tonsils showed up. Yes! Nazu’s daddy, who has very kindly adopted me and made me part of the family! It was his 81st birthday and so all us clowns got together to give him a beautifully tuneless rendition of the "Happy Birthday" song. There was a strange expression on his face while we sang, the harmony and melody drawing crowds of curious onlookers (or perhaps music lovers). Nazu insists his expression was a combination of pleasure and embarrassment, but I’m sure it was just his pure unadulterated joy, perhaps on an empty stomach. (He left for lunch soon after).

Then on we went, and I even got to step out for some fresh air with Miss Rose. We walked down from St. Mark’s to a famous restaurant called Koshy’s. Now I’m not vain, but let me tell you, we turned plenty of heads at that fine establishment.

That was one good clown day.

Face painting at the Christmas bazaar.

Here are some pictures that Dr Crazy took of me at the OWC Bazaar yesterday! Miss Rose decided to be different! So instead of wearing her offical Dr Clown nose, she got me to paint a ladybird on the tip of her nose!

I also had loads of fun painting clown faces on little children there. I wish I had more pictures of their funny sweet faces. I do, but only in my memory.

Happy Birthday!

No, not my birthday. It's my friend here. I don't know why he's wearing a black t-shirt on his birthday. Surely he should have worn something bright and jolly. Anyway he came to the Christmas Bazaar and we all sang Happy Birthday to him. That's Put-put and Dr Crazy in the picture with him.

Return of the red-nosed!

Ooh, it feels good to be back! Today I finally started clowning again. Mamooo and I did the rounds at Philomena's, there were lots of little girls and boys ranging from 4 to 9 years old or so - Dolly, Pavan, Rita, Prashant, Giri, Akash and one little boy whose name I forgot to ask, mainly because he had a bar of Cadbury's in his shirt pocket so she kept calling him Chocolate Boy and pretending to steal his candy - and we succeeded in getting loads of giggles from them all. Mamu's fart-balloon was a huge success.

My favourite crotchety old cleaning lady was very happy to see us again, although she chased us out of one room where she had just mopped the floor. She talks to me a lot. As I don’t speak any Tamil, and she doesn’t speak any English, these conversations are always quite intriguing. I’m pretty sure she is asking for a dance, so I usually try to sweep her into a waltz. She was saying something about tomatoes at one point, and pointing at my nose. It must have been some traditional Tamil vegetarian compliment.

We also succeeded in drying some tears, which felt good. The first was Sakshi, a little boy in the ICU, having a drip put in. Screaming his head off. We didn't do much good at first, but then Mamu started singing softly and he actually calmed down. Meanwhile Sakshi’s mummy was getting equally worked up and she dissolved into tears too so I took her off to one side and we had a little chat and dried those tears off.

For me, the best part of the morning - the biggest compliment - was when we were heading back at the end of our rounds, and one of the senior nurses stopped to tell us that Akash, one of the kids we'd seen earlier was crying and would we go back and cheer him up? It really felt good, and meant a lot that she recognised the value of clowns in hospital.

Akash wasn't in pain, just cranky and unhappy. I think he wanted a cigarette, but as you know, there’s No Smoking in hospitals. However, the nurses had given him a funny machine called a nebuliser, which kept pouring out all the smoke he needed. All he had to do was stick a little mask over his face and inhale it. But you know these smokers. They want their cigarettes. So he kept pushing it away and crying, and making quite a lot of noise.

But once we arrived, we were able to calm him down and then he had lots of happy puffs on his nebuliser. It was wonderful to be there and see him soon go from screaming back to his delightfully mischievous giggling.

So - a lovely morning. Exhausting, of course. So I’ll stop here. I’ve a big day tomorrow at the Overseas Women’s Group’s Christmas Bazaar. Must get my cutie sleep.