We started the session with what is “Role-Play” and we quickly shared how we could play a character and be able to think about how the character feels, talks, etc.
Children were told that they would be told a story and at a certain point in the story it would be paused – they need to take a role from there on and play that character and continue the story…
The story was about “Nimmi”…Quickly children were told how Nimmi’s life was and the people who were close to her. The story pointed out the major happenings in her life like childhood, work, marriage and how she was associated with the other characters.
The story paused at a point that one-day Nimmi didn’t wake up – she had a heart attack and she died….
Children were asked to take on the story from here – there were numbers assigned to each character and they had to choose a number and play the role/relationship that Nimmi had with each of them…
Characters were – sister, mother, husband, children, best friends and colleagues.
Children took few minutes to think and wanted to have a scene – they were quick to create a Nimmi lying dead 🙂
The characters decided the sequence in which they would enter the scene. Children quickly took turns to express the initial reactions, formalities. As they soaked in the roles – they exhibited how what needs to be done next would be the next important thing. They were asked to express feelings and think of the emotions the characters would be going through. Husband expressed how she could have lived for some more years, mother’s reaction was totally in shock and looked as if she went mad on hearing the news, child was crying, grief and at the same time the father and child were discussing on what has to be done next, sister expressed how terrible she is feeling and how she is going to miss her….The roles spoke about what to do with the body, the organ donation (vaguely on these lines i guess), how life is going to be and how each will take care of themselves to fill in the gap…
We winded up the session with thoughts on what would happen to Nimmi (what she must be thinking), what happens to the person after being dead – children expressed how the spirit or soul must also be feeling about the family, how they could be re-born, how they might reach yamlok, etc. We also shared about whom we lost recently or have seen someone losing their loved ones. Children expressed about pets, grandparents, etc.
The idea was to talk about DEATH and that’s all!