With a red nose, bright attire, and a few magic tricks, Pravin Tulpule quickly changes the atmosphere of the children’s cancer unit. This silly clown moves from bed to bed telling jokes and making sure his audience is laughing all the way through. He has spent the last 20 years doing what he says makes him happy, which is “making others happy.”
The event that altered his course in life
At the request of a close friend, Pravin performed a clown act for a group of young cancer patients in 2000 through the Mumbai-based WeCare Foundation. From the start of the concert to its conclusion, a young youngster followed him around. He even excitedly took pictures with him. A few days thereafter, Pravin was pleasantly delighted to see a newspaper article including his picture with the youngster. When he contacted his friend right away to tell him how happy he was, he was devastated to hear that the youngster had passed away.
I consider myself successful if I can help them to at least temporarily forget their misery.
When Pravin visits a cancer ward, he says he does his best to make sure the short minutes he spends with the patients help them temporarily forget their misery. He has them do magic tricks and even allows them to play practical jokes on medical professionals. His efforts to bring some fun and lightheartedness to the hospital are evident in the grins on the faces of the kids as he finally leaves.
“I have frequently seen that when I am there, the parents of cancer patients appear to unwind more than the patients themselves. This is because, despite their desire for a brief but pleasant encounter, they are plagued by a thousand unpleasant thoughts. Parents have asked me to just display my face to their children in the intensive care unit because it makes them happy, even if they are battling for their lives.
Pravin desires to provide them with more than just joy. Pravin consistently makes house calls to hundreds of cancer patients and their families in an effort to offer them a second shot at life. He makes an effort to cheer people up and smile, but he has seen from experience that these things are insufficient on their own.
I know a lot of young kids whose underprivileged parents had to discontinue their medical care because they couldn’t afford it. In these circumstances, my thought has always been, “If only I could find a way to help them financially, they could keep smiling forever.” And now that I’ve discovered a solution, I need your help to make sure that every kid with cancer receives the care they need. Our combined efforts can save lives.
The goal of this joyful clown is to gather money for the kids in Tata Memorial Hospital’s pediatric cancer unit in Mumbai. He had been making them giggle the entire time. He wants to do more this time, though—he wants to save their lives as well.