Theatre training for destitute children

Jaipur: Theatre organisation Natyakulam has taken a unique initiative for overall artistic development of destitute talented children by training them free of cost. The organisation has set up a residential training centre where professional training will be imparted to destitute talented children - free of cost alongwith lodging and boarding facilities - by experts of respective art forms like dance, drama, music, painting, handicrafts and martial arts. "Formal education from recognised universities and education boards will also be provided to such children in the training camp which will be based on the Guru-Shisya tradition," said Kulguru of the Natyakulam, B R Bhargava. "After conducting two years of experimental theatre work, we have now started concentrating on the main objective of establishment of Natyakulam. We are like a family and for setting up the camp, a city-based businessman has provided us land and building free of cost on temporary basis," he said. "Our mission is to re-discover, re-establish and re-create threatre and to achieve this objective, Natyakulam, which is structured on the old Gurukul tradition, will adopt destitute children of 8-15 years of age having inborn talent," Bhargava said. "We will adopt a maximum number of 100 kids at one particular time. The number of disciples will depend upon the infrastructure and other facilities for Gurus and disciples," he said, adding that NGOs and other social organisations were also contacted for such under-privileged but talented children. Initially, a boy, rechristened as Abhinav Natyakulam, hailing from Haryana, was adopted. PTI