Where was I?

An excellent question, indeed. Alas, I do not have the answer but does it really matter? I'm back. Two years, three months, and four decades later, I have returned. Perhaps in time the story of where I have been all this while, will come to me. It will be a true story, of course, just like all my stories.

So here I am, gingerly venturing forth in my size 42 shoes. Since I last went clowning, I have developed ingrown toenails, and so my clown shoes are more useful than ever. Sadly, one of them (my shoes, not my toenails) was so overwhelmed by this impulsive return to the world at large, that it fell apart.

Alas.

Also, my nose is cracked. I must find a good plastic surgeon to return me to clown perfection from my nose to my toes.

But this did not stop me from visiting the Home for the Aged on Hosur Road last weekend. It is a lovely place, run by a bunch of lovely ladies who call themselves the Little Sisters, although most of them are taller than me. They are a very large family, all girls, and they like to dress in identical dresses.

They had their Annual Fete on Sunday, October 9th, and they called me up and asked me if I'd like to come! So I went. I made loads of new friends. Little ones, from Justin and Johnson to Anto and Shirley. And big ones, from Bessie and Teresa to Drugless and Mr. Lewis. We all had a wonderful time, and I have photographic evidence of this. Well, actually I don't. But somebody does, and I'm hoping they will read this and say, "Ooh! I must send copies of these lovely photographs to Gladys immediately!"

They had a big bright band playing there too. I tried to keep up on my trusty multi-purpose banana, but sadly, it needed tuning, which is a difficult and intricate procedure that I personally am not capable of. I did ask the conductor if he could give me some music lessons on the banana, but he declined. He was quite busy.

The fete ended with a raffle, and I was so excited that I called up the winner on his mobile phone, to tell him that he had won a car! I think the news rendered him speechless and very emotional, because he listened intently and silently, and then hung up without saying a word. I assume he recovered by the time the Little Sisters called him the following day to tell him the same thing.

And then, all too soon it was over, and the bottom of my shoe fell off, and I walked home happily in the rain, with a very useful size 42 shoe sole doubling up as an umbrella, and then I fell into bed and took a four-hour nap, after which I woke up for a quick dinner and some medicines, and then had another nap till the next morning.

So there you have it, good people of Bangalooraloo! (And also the bad people, and the ugly. I love you all). I am back. But don't look for me in the hospitals, because I won't be working there any more. I'm not as young and sprightly as I was, and I can't afford to have four-hour naps every time I come home from clowning. So I'm going to take things a little slower, and shorter.

I'll let you know where and when I'll be taking these slower, shorter things, of course.

love,
Gladys.

P.S. Watch this space!

P. P. S. Don't forget to blink.

I miss clowning.

I'm sick. I can't go to work at hospital. I can't go anywhere. Last week no one went to St Philomena's, half our clowns were out of town, and the others weren't well. Oh dear. Fortunately Bindaas and Brush-buddha are going there tomorrow, and they're taking one of our trainees Leanne on her first observation session!

Things are going slow indeed, but at least they're going. And once we finish all our trainees' practice sessions, they can start clowning with the rest of us. I hope everything picks up soon!

Kung fu, cockroaches and a little bit of clown magic.

Yes, business as usual .. another delightful day at hospital yesterday for Babydoll and me. We did bump into the Danger Lady of Cleaning, but we managed to chase her off with bubbles (she doesn't like them, for some reason, which is rather ironic, don't you think, since she walks around with a bucket of soapy water?) and we also went prepared with my newest artillery: two large rubbery swords. She did try to steal them, but fortunately the bubbles kept her at bay.

Strategic idiocy. That's what hospital clowning's all about, I think. And it does work wonders. Today, a brief lesson in kung fu was followed by a session of kallaripattu (those bendy swords really worked well for this). I figured people would work up an appetite after that, but for some reason, every time I try to serve up a nice dish of fried cockroach, everyone I offer it to seems to be a vegetarian.

The very best part of today, though, was right at the end when we were getting ready to leave. That's when we did the magic. No, we didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat. There was a mother who lifted her baby up and I think jostled his drip a little, so he started wailing. And I already had my flute in hand, so I went up and played softly for him, and Babydoll sang too. And guess what, he just stopped crying and went back to sleep!

It was just like magic and everyone looked most impressed. Then we blew kisses to everyone and whispered goodbyes and tiptoed out of the ward.

Video: Grease was the word.

Well I've been busy posting this video on all our Dr Clown sites - our blog, our Youtube account "drclownindia", our mailing lists, and finally I'm done, so now I can post it here too, in case you missed it! This is from our Clown show that we held in March this year. It was the opening number to our show, which was all about us clowns getting Saturday night fever.

Allow me to introduce everyone, cos we're not dressed in our usual clown clothes, we all got special party wear for the show.

Miss Rose is the lady in the silver dress and the blonde afro. Baby Doll is in pigtails and a pink dress. Crazy has a top hat. Bindaas wore harem pants and a sparkly waistcoat but of course also her trademark gypsy scarf. Bobo was in real clown couture, she had her bell-bot jumpsuit specially tailored for the occasion. Brushbuddha was the rocker with the green hair. And I tried to look like John Revolta so I wore a waistcoat and a tie.

It's a bit crazy and chaotic but that's how we are. We had a lot of fun and so did all the children!

Her name is Bhavani and she is a very naughty lady.

Yes. She was there again today. The cleaning lady in the blue sari. I kept calling her Lakshmi Amma until she finally confessed that her name is actually BHAVANI. I sang a special song for her then - "hey javaani, hey Bhavani! Ruk, meri raani! Ruk, Miss Bhavani!" But this did not stop her from stealing my banana. Yes. She is a naughty lady because she keeps picking my pockets! And she stole my banana! But I managed to steal it back. I don't mind her stealing things so much because she always gives them back. But then I can't use those things with the children because of our hygiene rules. And my plastic banana is one of my most valuable pieces of equipment. Sometimes it is my cell phone. Sometimes it is a microphone (in fact, today it was, when I sang a Tamil duet with Arun. We only managed to sing two words, "Appadi, poday, poday, poday!" because we didn't know the rest of the song, so to make up for the lack of words, we just sang those two words about a zillion times.)

Sometimes my banana is a gun and I use it to keep Lakshmi Amma, a.k.a. Bhavani, at bay. Fortunately she did not chase me with her mop today. But she made me mop two flagstones. I think I did a good job. I am getting better at it. I'm lucky to get free mop training from her. Soon I will be quite the expert. I think next time I will get myself a tiny little trainee mop. I've seen one in Dr Tonsils' house. But for some strange reason he uses it to spread oil on frying pans when he's making dosas. (Those are like Indian pancakes by the way).

Oh and there were lots of children today. Big ones too for a change. There was a boy Riyaz who was so tall he couldn't stand up or he'd give himself a free haircut from the fan. There was also a very long boy. Well his name was long it was Abijeetchakravorty. And there were some tiny little girls Pushpa and Amreen and there were even some bigger girls. Priyanka was there looking very sleepy but inspite of that she was very enthusiastic and so I designated her as my official Lakshmi Amma Lookout.

Usually a lot of the children are little toddlers but today they were mostly schoolchildren, bunking class to be in hospital and see the clowns! Bindaas and I had a lot of fun with them all. And we took Boing with us, on his observation session. He enjoyed it too and can't wait for his next session which is a practice session and then after that he can start clowning with us which will be very nice. We haven't had enough clowns to visit all our hospitals so once our apprentice clowns start clowning, we can go back and spread more sunshine in more places!

The only sad thing was that since I had recently had a snifferly nose, I decided it was better not to go into the ICU. And there were lots of children there. This is why I always tell people not to hug and kiss me, especially if they might have a cough or a cold. But people don't listen. They just want a hug from me and they don't think about the children. That's not right. Because then I can't go to the children. I feel very bad about that and the next person who hugs me with a cold is going to get a bonk on the head, that's what. I'm not usually into violence, but sometimes a clown's gotta do what a clown's gotta do.

And now I am very tired and waiting for my broccoli to finish steaming cos I need the nutrition. I don't know why but I get very very tired every time I go clowning. I think I need to lose some weight or grow younger. But I think I will have my energy back by next week just in time to go clowning again.

Oh, my brocolli's ready. Good bye.

I just like this picture so much.

Look I found another picture taken by that muscly man from Time Out Bangalooraloo. It's an old picture but I do love it.

Another hot and sweaty day.

This time it wasn't at the marathon, it was at hospital. I had these hot flushes all the way through. I hope it's not the menopause. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, hospital. Babydoll and I went to St. Philomena's, and our new friend The Clown With No Name came with us on a training session.

We didn't see many children today, but there were an awful lot of newborn babies and new mummies. I have analysed this since, and come to the conclusion that many people felt a need for closeness and intimacy after the Bombay terrorist attacks. And hence: lots of babies nine months later.

After we finished clowning with the children, The Clown With No Name waited for us outside, while Babydoll and I went into the maternity wards. We saw lots of lovely newly made babies and had tons of fun with the mummies. None of them were Egyptian. Babydoll had two new baby dolls of her own, so we had a little twin delivery and some tortuous breastfeeding, and I even got to do the circumcisions on her little twins. The mummies were quite delighted by all this, because I think they really related to it all!

We also bumped into the monster cleaning lady who loves us and hates us at the same time. She's always shouting at us in Tamil, telling us to get out and let her mop the floors, but then she really enjoys playing with us too. We mopped some of the floor for her till she chased us away. Babydoll jumped up on a chair and trembled with fear! I tried to escape by flying on the mop which had a very long wooden handle and looked a bit like a Hogwarts broom. However, I clearly do not have the knack for flying, so it didn't work. But we did manage to get away. After a while, she missed us, and came by to chase us some more and play games with us. I think she had a lovely day because we're probably the only people she can shout at and order around, and she got to be the star of the show. I can't wait to see her again next week.

So it was lovely as always but there was one sad thing I found out afterwards, that Babydoll met a lady out in the corridor, who had had a baby, but the baby died. That is a sad thing, indeed, and difficult even for a clown to face. It's easy to make people laugh and smile, but sometimes that's not our job. Sometimes the most important thing for us to do, is just to be there with someone and share their pain a little. I wish I had known, I would have gone to meet that lady. Next time I should keep my eyes and ears and heart more open so that I don't miss important things like this.

NEWS: I know not what it says - Eenadu

Here's a lovely article about me. I'm pretty sure it's a lovely article because the gentleman who wrote it was very nice. I have no idea what it says, though, because I cannot read the Telugu language. If you know what it says, please tell me!

My friend Rhea suggested that the top bit looks like a Before and After ad. I hope not. It could be an ad for a miraculous cure for poor eyesight. People would believe it because they would think that the person in the Before picture couldn't see properly to put her lipstick on.

But I don't think that's what it says.

This article is in a daily newspaper called Eenadu, it's the largest newspaper in Andhra Pradesh (that's the next door state to Karnataka. In case you're wondering what Karnataka is, that's the state of which Bangalore is the capital.)

NEWS: Run The Talk - Tulir Blog

My friends over at Tulir, the Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, wrote a little something about me on their blog. It was them I was supposed to run for at the marathon, but by the time I finished with all the costume stuff and media people, the race was over :o( But never mind, because I went one round of the Kanteerva Stadium track, so I can say I did my bit of walking (I even tried running a few steps but then the clown shoes proved a problem!)

Paddy's pictures from the marathon

Here are two pictures my new friend Paddy took of me, over at the marathon last month!

By the way, if you want to copy these pix, please make sure you include the copyright ribbon at the bottom of the picture!

NEWS: Something to do with blessings and life - Eenadu

Mr. Adinarayana is a man of good taste. He likes clowns. Not only has he written this article about our Red Nose Ceremony, and filled it with lovely pictures of us, too! So many! But he's also writing another article about me, to go in the women's section of his newspaper.

I'm not exactly sure what the headline is but I know that it includes the words 'blessings' and 'life'. If you know what this article says, please tell me. It's written in Telugu, and is in the Eenadu newspaper.

Happy Nose Day!

Today we had our first Red Nose Ceremony! That's like a graduation party for our new clowns. I thought it would be more fun to have a special ceremony to celebrate the nosing of our new clowns. So we had speeches and clapping and certificates and cake. It was a lovely morning.

This is a picture of the lovely pineapple cake we had at our ceremony, and those are our new graduates cutting the cake.

And here are our new clowns. This is Bobette,

trying to get used to her new nose.

Next, here's Boing! More hair than face in this picture but he's in there somewhere! And that's King Joseph next to him. King Joseph is my very good friend and also the Technical Coordinator of the Alliance Francaise, where we work from. And behind King Joseph is a lovely No Smoking sign.
This chappie here is The Clown With No Name. He's hoping that one of these days he will find it, and intends to search all the hospital wards very thoroughly in case it's lying around there somewhere. And last, but definitely not least, is our baby-est clown, Fae! She's very sprinkly and glittery and I think she has flown down from Fairyland.

Yay! Four more clown hearts in the world.

NEWS: Fun Run with Cowboys and Clowns - Times of India

I'm feeling so touched reading what people have been writing about me. I feel so LOVED and that's a very nice feeling to feel. I hope when I go out clowning I'm getting other people to feel it too. The world needs more good feelings doesn't it?

Look in that picture, it's my friend the brave condom lady! In one of the articles I was reading, somebody said they were used condoms. Oh my! That's not true. I know because I asked her, and because they had a nice fresh rubbery smell, with a light bouquet of medicine.

Something borrowed, something orange!

Here are some pictures I've borrowed off my friend's blog, his name is Shujath Ulla Khan and if you want to see more marathon pictures just go to his blog. He won Sakkath Bangalorean #3. These are some pictures with me in them. I don't know who took them, but I guess it was a friend of his (thank you whoever you are):

In case you're wondering what I'm doing there, I was fanning him with my hat. It was a very hot day.

Here we are getting our giant cheques. I felt just like Man of The Match.

Mr Techie got some lovely pictures of us at the marathon!

Hello again! I just found one of my friends from yesterday's marathon, right here on blogspot. He has written some nice stuff and put up some lovely pictures of him and me and also the condom lady who came first! The three of us were the Sakkat Bangaloreans! I get happy memories when I look at these pictures! Wheee!

I was on TV last night!

Look! There I am! It was very nice to see myself from the outside!


I don't have the actual TV footage (from a station called TV 9) but here are some photographs we took of the TV set, while the footage was playing!

The first picture is of me just after I got my gigantic cheque, unfortunately I did not take a picture of when I was getting my bouquet and then my hat fell off. A little later in the programme, I popped up again, this time they were interviewing me.

NEWS: Bangaloreans Run For A Cause - Deccan Herald

Here's an article about the marathon, by someone from the Deccan Herald, and he wrote a bit about me! I remember this gentleman asking me how old I was! I told him that he shouldn't ask ladies their age. But he said that he was from the PRESS and that's why he had to press on to get this vital information from me. By the way, I'm only a TEENY bit older than Shah Rukh Khan.

I went. I ran (okay I walked). I won!

Yes! I did! I really did win at the marathon! Second prize! I won just for being me! I arrived early in the morning at the almost unspeakable hour of (six). I did a lot of walking. That was before the marathon even began. Then this lady told me to walk some more to a different gate where all the costumed people were. So I did. And I took part in a costume competition, and guess what? I came second! Isn't it lovely?

And I got to meet so many interesting people. A condom lady, a devil lady, a one-eyed techie, a pirate, an anti-pirate, some trees, lots of animals and I even met a peacock man! It was all very hot and sweaty but it was tons of fun and I think I've lost some weight. I also got to meet lots of very sweet children! Like the beautiful princess Malaika, and a monk called Siddharth. Even though he had lost his Ferrari, he just beamed out the most wonderful smile I've ever seen. And this sweet little baby who didn't like all the noise, but fortunately I had some cotton wool in my make-up kit in my handbag, so I gave some to his daddy, and he put it in the baby's ears and after that he was fine.

After that costume competition I got a big giant cheque for twenty thousand rupees only, and it says I am offically now Sakkat Bangalorean Number Two. (That means I came second. It doesn't mean the other Number Two). And Sakkat Bangalorean means I am a really strong Bangalooraloo person. I feel proud that people said that about me. It makes me feel nice inside.

And I got to stand on a podium and got the big giant cheque and a bunch of flowers (carnations, my dear! They're in a vase in the sitting room now!) from a handsome young man whose phone number I forgot to take. I don't know what to do with the money. I think I will buy presents for my favourite people, and some money for my friends who Dream A Dream because it's very important to dream dreams and never give up on them, and some for a nice running track for a little twelve year old girl who can do the 100 metres in just 14 seconds, barefoot! And also I will buy a microwave oven, which is a present for me, because I am also one of my favourite people.

After that, lots of people with cameras and microphones wanted to take my picture and ask me questions, so I told them all about Dr Clown and also about Child Sexual Abuse because I was in the marathon to support Tulir, an NGO that has a Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. I like Tulir a lot because they do so much to help children, and I don't like child abuse at all. It just doesn't make sense, does it? But it happens. So I think it's important to try and help in any way so that it can stop happening and then children can just grow up nicely and not have those pains and fears and sadnesses and then they'd grow up and be sad or angry grownups. It's very difficult to be a sad and angry grownup, and not be able to enjoy so many of the nice things of life and my goodness it's so unnecessary if we just looked after the children nicely so they didn't have to grow up that way! So I supported Tulir and told everyone about them.

It was really nice to see so many people there supporting so many different causes. It wasn't just nice, it was wonderful. That Kanteerva Stadium was just buzzing with good vibrations, all those people full of positive vibes, everyone doing something about something, to make the world a better place. That's what it's all about, I think. I hope we keep doing it. That way if we get reborn then we'll come back to a really nice world. That would be fun. Well .. actually it already is a really nice world. I just want it to get nicer and nicer, so that every generation can have fun stuff and happy memories.

Oh. It's really thundery outside. Long-playing thunder that just goes on and on, and it's raining a lot too. I wonder if the peacock man is dancing. He said something about liking to dance in the rain. Or maybe it was before the rain. I forget. Whatever. I hope he's dancing. It's good for the soul, dancing is.

It's been such a happy day for me. The most exciting part was when the ladies came running back into the stadium at the end of their 10K run. You could feel the stadium getting excited and I got excited too and wanted to run behind them (but I couldn't because I was in a different place). And another nice part of today was that there was so many people happy to see me. I felt like a movie star, cos they all wanted to take pictures with me, and they were all smiling and laughing. Just think, now there's hundreds of people tonight in Bangalooraloo, with pictures of me smiling at them on their mobile phones. I'm glad they get to keep my smile.

Oh there's the thunder again. It's a bit scary. I think I better stop writing because the electric city may go off. But before I end I just have to say OH GUESS WHAT I saw myself on TV tonight after dinner. It's the first time I saw myself from outside of myself. I got to see what everyone else sees when they look at Gladys. I just realised I'm a very funny old lady. I like me.

So that's all for now. Before the next thundery thunder starts, I'm off to bed. Good night!

NEWS: Many Smiles Per Hour - Time Out magazine

Lookie! Another article about the seminar, this time in Time Out Bengaluru, written by Amrita Gupta. This is a nice magazine that has lots of news about all the fun things going on in Bangalooraloo, if it wasn't for them I'd have no idea what to do with myself. It comes out every fortnight and for some reason, most of the people who work there have names starting with "A". But that's not to say they're prejudiced against the rest of the alphabet because I know for a fact they also have a "J". I think maybe people whose names start with "A" have to be very attentive and early to school so that they can say "present" when the teacher calls out the attendance register. And this has a tremendous impact on them, so they grow up to be journalists.

I'm not sure I was very good.

Well, I went to Sutradhar's seminar on Play In Hospital, today. I went with my friend Mili from Dr Clown, and we introduced our work to all the people there. There was another lady who does play therapy in Pune, her name is Meera Okay! She was definitely more than just okay, she's done a lot of work and has an organisation called CHUGRAD! And she had a very impressive presentation on the computer and was very organised. Not like me. I'm not sure I was very good but I talked a lot about whatever I could remember about our work, and so I hope that some of what I said made sense. Everyone seemed happy enough, though.

It was really nice to see that there are different people doing different things in different places - but all to the same end - to make children in hospital feel better. It was good to meet them all. I also got to meet a fellow clown, Pravin, who lives in Bombay! That was good luck! He had come down to Bangalooraloo for someone's wedding and when I told him about the seminar, he jumped into an auto rickshaw and came to it! Wasn't that sweet? It was nice to meet him. He does magic too, and he did some for Mili and me! I was very impressed!

My favourite part of the evening was at the end when they gave me a present! It was something they make themselves, the Sutradhar people. They have lots of lovely stuff - games and toys and books, and lots of different puppets, yum, you can see them and even buy them, if you click on the link. Anyway, my present was a puppet! A little Indian maharajah puppet. I can't wait to take him to hospital with me.