The Child with an Elephant Head (Script) - Ganesha Chaturthi 2012

Look carefully at the pix taken at school on that day.
There is Ganesha on the back-ground screen,
a solid Ganesha statue on the chair and
the smoke from the incense sticks looks like a formation
of an elephant. 

Below is a script I wrote for a shadow puppet show. This piece was featured at primary school assembly on 19 Sept 2012 which coincided with Ganesha Chaturthi.

It was wonderful to have the voice of Ms. Sudha Mahadevan and Ms. Shalini N as the voice of Amma and the Child - they made the puppets come alive.

I needed the help of another person to move the puppet and got the assistance from Caroline (an intern from the UK who has just completed her IB.) It was nice working together on the puppet - from our initial very slow response to the script to working out the timing perfectly.

Teachers, you have permission to use the script as a resource to introduce Lord Ganesha to children (kindly credit to me). In this story: there is an emphasis on symbolization that is a norm in Hinduism or Indian myth. The discussion of Ganesha's body parts encourages children emulate the traits of this well loved Indian God. The story of the tusk, emphasizes the importance of gaining knowledge. 

Cast: 2 members. Puppeteers: 2 members.

1)               Voice of Amma (Mother)

2)               Voice of Child

The Child with an Elephant Head by Nala Nantha

The Shadow Play in Action

Child:        Amma, who is that?

Amma:       Oh, he is just a child, like you.

Child:        Amma, why does he have such a BIG head?

Amma:       Oh, so that he can think big, like you.

Child:        Amma, why does he have such LARGE ears?

Amma:       Oh, so that he can listen better, like you.

Child:        Amma, why does he have such a SMALL MOUTH?

Amma:       Oh, so that he can talk less, unlike you.

Child:        Ammmmaaaa! Amma, why does he have such TINY eyes?

Amma:       Oh, so that he can concentrate better, like you.

Child:        Amma, why does he have such a BIG belly? Doesn’t he know that it is not nice to be greedy?

Amma:       Oh, he is not greedy at all…  He only helps to swallow up the sorrows of the universe and protects the world.

The arrow indicates the various parts

Child:        Amma, is that a rope he is holding?

Amma:       Yes, only to pull you to your highest goals.

Child:        Oh no, Amma, he has an axe too!

Amma:       Yes, but only to cut away the bonds of attachments.

Child:        Amma, amma, this cannot be real! That looks like a Trunk?

Amma:       You see, a trunk is very efficient and adaptable and we need to be just that.

Child:        And A Tusk?

Amma:       Yes, it is said that Sage Vyasa narrated the Mahabharata. The longest epic in the world was not the job for an ordinary scribe so Sage Vyasa requested this child, Ganesha, to become his scribe.
Ganesha put one condition that Vyasa should recite the Mahabharat non-stop and Vyasa’s condition was that Ganesha should listen and write only after understanding the lines that he dictated.

Both agreed to the condition.

The stylus breaks

After some days of writing the stylus used by Ganesh broke and as he could not stop writing, he broke off one of his tusks and started writing with it.

Child:        He breaks his tusk just for that?

Amma:       Yes, it is because we believe that any amount of sacrifice is not too much to gain knowledge.
(Pause)

Ganesha breaks his tusk and keeps on writing...

Child:        Amma,

Amma:       Yes,

Child:        Are you sure he is just a child, like me?

Amma:       Yes, he is just a child like you, with an Elephant Head.

 END.

Sage Vyasa & Ganesha

source for Ganesha symbolism: http://www.sarasbaug.in/html/lord-ganesha-symbolism.html

The Child with an Elephant Head

source for the story of the tusk: http://www.hindu-blog.com/2010/08/story-of-ganesha-writing-mahabharata.html