Koko – An Interesting Experiment in Theatre

I had the chance to view a play – ‘Koko’ at the famed Narada Gana Sabha through the Chennai Bloggers Club. We were invited to view the play and share our honest and unbiased reviews.

The play revolves around a hen, its young one a chicken and a set of three circus friends who are represented like tramps. The show started on the dot at 7 PM – kudos to the troupe to stick to the announced time.

The tale shows how the hen Chikki escapes from a butcher and makes friends with the three tramps. Chikki lays an egg that hatches into Koko. The first few minutes use shadow-imagery to great effect. They also project visuals of the chicken growing within the egg on the shell of the egg. At one point it felt they showed a human baby developing!

Then starts the saga of Koko’s education. From Rooster Public School to athletics training, kung fu classes at Ko ko ro ko Kung Fu School and tuition the poor little chicken suffers a lot because of the pressure being exerted by her mother! The little one gets angry and decides to run away!

How the three tramps drive sense into the heads of Chikki and Koko and how they save Koko from the butcher who makes a return in the climax form the crux of this lovely production.

The lighting, sound-design, songs, everything worked in favour of the talented team. Special mention of the little lady playing Koko – Miss Subhashree; she stole the thunder and got a lot of warm applause from the jam-packed theatre.

Aren’t we pressurising the little ones with a 100 activities. The moment the child is born – its engineer, doctor, lawyer, CA or cricketer or singer (Going by IPL craze and galaxy of singing shows on TV). We push all our unfulfilled dreams on our children, giving them hardly any time to enjoy their childhood. The play is a satirical yet thought-provoking examination of how a vast majority of Indian parents have failed to create a safe and conducive growing environment for their children.

Kudos to Team MacTrics – A great job by all the stakeholders involved in this production. Definitely a play that all teachers, parents and children should see!

Images – Shot in darkness using a basic mobile phone – forgive the grainy images and the photographer.

JUICE by Mohit Jain – Book Review

This is the second book that I have received from ace-teacher, inspirational speaker and author – Mohit Jain. The previous book that I had reviewed was Four Corners of the Circle. You can read the review here.

J.U.I.C.E. stands for – ‘Join us in creating education’

The book has an intriguing cover in blue – with the outline of a cocktail glass designed with various words.

The book focuses on explaining tough and complicated principles in management and economics through simple tales that can be easily understood and retained in memory.

One of the other aspects that I liked in this book are numerous illustrations and cartoons with some text in them. These ensure that readers are not bored and the interest in the book is maintained throughout.

The writer takes various incidents from his own life – his stint in Direct Marketing, his evolution as a teacher and motivational speaker and uses these incidents to cover a number of topics that are part of the curriculum in all management programmes.

I would love to write more about this book – but then it would rob potential readers the joy of reading the concepts that have been explained in easy to understand ‘no-nonsense’ style.

My only sore-point with the book is some spelling errors that have crept in – then again the message and the value of this book to management and economics students is much higher than the minor irritant of a few spelling mistakes.

I would whole heartedly recommend this book to students; please buy this book. I wish I had read this book, when I was younger 🙂

Buy from Flipkart.

Priced at just Rs 199 – equivalent to a movie-ticket and parking at a multiplex – please invest money in this book – you will not be disappointed.