IT’S TAKEN 10 years for Anuradha Kale to get her son to step out. Nirmala Sumbe’s daughter has broken her silence and joined singing classes. Kedar Nath has finally found a space where he can talk freely, write poetry, even draw.
Last Friday, they were all there — mothers, fathers, sons, daughters — at a small wedding hall in Pune, happy and excited to be a part of an initiative that has been using expressive art forms like theatre to encourage communication among the mentally ill, changing over 200 lives in the last two years.
“We provide a creative space where they are not treated like patients. Earlier, even the simple act of smiling was so difficult for them. So coming together and expressing joy is a huge behavioural change that is enabled through music and other expressive art forms,” says Atul Pethe, the Marathi playwright who is behind this project.
Read more of this in a report by Anuradha Mascarenhas published in The Indian Express. Must compliment Anuradha and the newspaper to let people know of such initiatives, which are out of the box ideas. May be others, elsewhere, can replicate such moves.
