There is a group called 'Compassionate Clowns' who visit hospitals and other places to spread smile and joy. This time our 'Saturday special' group decided to go and join them. Every one of us was going to experience it for the first time. And interesting thing is - some of them have no idea what 'clowning' is and what we are going to do. So, for them it was just a jump into unknown sea where they don't know how to swim. :)





When Varsha and Diken (coordinators) started to paint faces so that we can look like a joker, many from our group were reluctant to paint their faces. We convinced them to just paint a big red dot on nose and they agreed to do it. Gradually, they saw other people having their full face painted and started liking it and wanted to have their full face painted. They were gradually opening up to try new things. :)

Varsha did orientation on 'what compassionate clowns could be' and we as a compassionate clown today for the kids and parents, what we are supposed to do. We stood in a circle joining each other hands, passing the energy to each other and praying universe to create a group energy to give our 100% to spread even a little smile to every child.
 

We as a group entered in the pediatric ward of Cancer hospital and most of the kids were lying on the bed, we could feel very low energy in the room. We were going to each bed to say them hello, trying to make them smile with some toys in our hand, cracking a joke, gently interacting with them and their parents. Some of them gave response, some of them still hesitant to respond or not. Some parents started to talk with us and gradually we could see kids eyes also twinkled with curiosities of who we are and started mixing with us.

Suddenly the whole ward got energized, some of the kids who were lying, sat on their bed and started smiling a little. Some of them were calling us to come again on their bed and talking with us, taking pictures with us in their phone and joking. The people from our group in my surprise who were first reluctant to paint their face also got so involved in their effort to make each kid smile - this is the power of group energy.

When we saw a kid smile, we were also smiling from our hearts. The fake smiles made initially, to make them smile is slowly converting into smile from the heart. Some of the parents were acknowledging that kids and they were feeling so low to look at all these pains through out the day and by seeing us they forgot their pain for few minutes and their time flied interacting with us.

Inside us, we also know that we can not help to reduce their pain but if we can spread a little happiness to them, divert their mind for few minutes or even few seconds and if this happy memory remains with them for one, two or even three days - we can at least do that!

We spent almost more than an hour with them, We said them good bye by entertaining them with 'Banana Dance' and running a human train in the ward. Now, most of them were smiling and this gave us an inner satisfaction that neither of us could express in words.

We came outside the ward, sat down in a circle to share our reflections and settle our mixed energy (pain to see them going through pain but satisfaction of doing little we can do for them). All of us learned something from this experience. One thing for sure, I can say is, we stepped today in the door of, what Nipun bhai calls, a 'Compassion College'.

Posted by Purvi Shah on Jul 27, 2015 | permalink