Chennai Children Use Puppetry to Highlight Environmental Harm
On July 18, fifteen children from the Narikurava community in Pallavaram travelled across Chennai as part of the “Toxic Tour” organised by Agai – Theatre of Voices in collaboration with Vettiver Collective and Chennai Climate Action Group. The tour introduced them to the industrial north of Chennai, where they saw thermal power plants, oil refineries and the Adani Port for the first time. The children learned how development affects daily life, particularly through polluted air.
The tour was part of a year-long puppetry production titled Enge Engal Nadhigal (Where Are Our Rivers?). In this production, children take centre stage as storytellers, writing their own scripts. Agai – Theatre of Voices, a Gen-Z Chennai collective, aims to provide a collaborative platform for young people to work towards social and environmental justice.
The collective was founded by Tittu and Nambi Srinivas, both trained social workers who met at the Madras School of Social Work. Tittu later pursued a postgraduate degree at Christ University, Bengaluru, while Nambi specialised in community development. Theatre became their common language before Agai formally began in 2023.
Tittu says social work made him question the idea that one must speak for communities. After being selected for the Kanthari international leadership programme in Thiruvananthapuram, he met Sabriye Tenberken, founder of the first blind school in Tibet, which reshaped Agai’s philosophy. “We completely reject the phrase ‘voice of the voiceless’,” Tittu says. “Everyone already has a voice. What people need is someone willing to listen.”
Agai has been working with the Narikurava children for two months, without rigid lesson plans or compulsory practice sessions. Time was spent sitting with the children, making puppets and talking. Once comfort emerged, stories began to surface. “Once we gave them the puppets, they started speaking automatically,” recalls Tittu. “Nothing was prompted. One child spoke about forests. Another spoke about the River Ganga, even though she has never seen it. The puppets became a space where they could say things adults never asked them.”
Those stories will become Enge Engal Nadhigal. Over the next year, the children will shape the script, perform it, and travel to different parts of Chennai and other cities, using theatre to tell audiences about disappearing rivers, environmental degradation and their worlds.
The process matters as much as the performance. “Getting children to stay with us for even one hour is difficult,” says Tittu. “One place they do not want to go is school. So we do not recreate school. We do not ask them to sit quietly and listen.” Instead, Agai asks adults to listen. Srinivas adds, “We are simply doing small things and going with the flow.” Agai aims to create a forest-based learning space where children enjoy education, adapting the system to the children rather than the other way around.
