Magic has a unique way of helping people forget their worries for a short while. Magician Sreejith Viyyur from Magic Academy, Koyilandy, is trying to make use of the illusory feature to help the mentally challenged in the city.
Assistant Collector K. Imbasekhar helped the magician create a bunch of flowers out of nothing to mark the beginning of the Vismaya Santhwana Yathra, conceived and executed by Mr. Sreejith, at the Government Mental Health Centre in Kozhikode on Tuesday.
For more than an hour, the magician and his students at the Academy performed trick after trick before the eager crowd of inmates. “When people forget their pains for some time and when curiosity and wonder replace the pain in their eyes, magic becomes therapeutic,” Mr. Sreejith said.
It was a train journey from Thiruvananthapuram to Kozhikode a few years ago that led Mr. Sreejith, a teacher at the Government Higher Secondary School at Meppayyur, to consider using magic for palliative care. “I met a group of people returning after treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre. I performed some small tricks for them and they were happy for a while,” the magician said.
It was a year ago that he set up the Magic Academy with the help of the Koyilandy municipality. He has been involved in various social issues through magic.
“The yatra is not funded by an external agency, but is a social service initiative of the academy,” Mr. Sreejith said. The yatra will next go to various mental health and palliative care centres across the district and conclude at Thanal at Vadakara. Mr. Sreejith plans to organise another yatra through the prisons in north Kerala.
Kathakali artiste Chemancheri Kunhiraman Nair, Sub Judge R.L. Baiju, writer Kalpetta Narayanan, Koyilandy municipality chairman Sathyan, District Medical Officer R.L. Saritha and Superintendent of the Hospital N. Rajendran were present on the occasion.
