Uday Foundation’s unique storytelling session with the presence of the DCP, South Delhi Police, HGS Dhaliwal in a new avatar of storyteller at the pediatric ward of Escorts Hospital in the National Capital was a plunge in two-fold directions.
One the objectives was to provide some relief to the kids during their hospitalisation who otherwise most of the times experience anxiety, loneliness and develop fear.
The other purpose that the initiative taken up by the Uday Foundation is to revive and sustain the ancient Indian art of storytelling, which stands thwarted by the modern invasions of audiovisual medium and the Internet.
It was very difficult for 10-year-old Rajendra Guddesariha, who was suffering from ventricular septal defect with pulmonary stenosis and was operated just two weeks before. According to his father, Shyam Sunder Guddesariha, Rajendra was very scared as for the first time traveled far from Rajasthan. Earlier, he was feeling lonely, but slowly he is mixing up with other children in the ward, said the boy’s father.
Similar was the case with Abhimanyu Singh from Baliya, Uttar Pradesh, who after being operated for mending a hole in his heart. He is now recovering. Both the children along with a few others attended the session of DCP HGS Dhaliwal who read out lessons from a book called “Road Safety Measures”. Besides, he also donated books for the pediatric library.
Explaining his association with the cause of granting relief to stressed children through entertainment, DCP HGS Dhaliwal said most people, including children, are scared of the police, but here I am to render a human face with a simple effort of storytelling. Children would take police more favourably,” he said.
The parents of the kids present were equally excited about the presence of a cop with some popular solved cases under his belt. They stole the moment to ask him about some of his talked-about cases like that of Om Prakash alias Bunty’s — the notorious kingpin of the biker gang, who had created havoc in the city.
Dr Krishna S Iyer, director, paediatric center of the hospital, said, “No matter how friendly we make it here, severely ill children and their parents tend to get stressed in the hospital atmosphere. These things take their minds off their immediate problems for some time.”
Uday foundation — an NGO dedicated to the cause of severely ill children—gathered over 1000 volunteers, who would be reading out stories to the children admitted in the hospitals.
