Do you want to understand your city? Try traveling from one end of it to the other. On July 18, fifteen children from the Narikurava community in Pallavaram had the privilege of undertaking such a cross-city journey thanks to the “Toxic Tour” organized by Aagai – Theater of Voice in collaboration with Vettivar Collective and Chennai Climate Action Group. These children were being introduced to the industrial north of Chennai where tall chimneys mark the skyline. For the first time, they were eyeing thermal power plants, oil refineries and Adani Port.

At every turn, children learned how development is affecting people’s everyday lives; More specifically, breathing polluted, toxic air into the lives of those in need. This was not an awareness march. The children were wearing researcher hats, filing information for Ange Engel Nadhigal (Where Are Our Rivers?), a year-long puppet production in which children take center stage as storytellers and write their own scripts.

The architects of this initiative, Aghai-Theatre of Voices is a young Gen-Z Chennai collective that seeks to provide a collaborative platform for their own (i.e. other members of Gen Z) to work towards social and environmental justice. The philosophy is hardly accidental. It reflects the journey of its founders, Tittu (as he prefers to be known) and Nambi Srinivas, both trained social workers, whose paths first crossed at the Madras School of Social Work. While Tittu pursued a master’s degree at Christ University, Bengaluru, and Nambi specialized in community development, theater became the language that united them long before Aagai formally came into existence in 2023. For Tittu, social work destroyed not only career options but also inherited beliefs. For one, “It made me question the idea that we have to speak for communities.” This conviction deepened after Tittu’s selection for Kanthari, the international leadership program in Thiruvananthapuram, where he was among only three participants from India. There, a meeting with Sabrie Tenburken, founder of the first blind school in Tibet, reshaped Agai’s ideological orientation. “We completely reject the phrase ‘the voice of the voiceless,'” he says. “Everyone already has a voice. People need someone who is willing to listen.” And this is now Aagai’s guiding principle, informing its initiatives, including the program for children of the Narikurava community in Pallavaram.

Aagai has been working with these children for the last two months. No rigid lesson plan; No mandatory practice sessions. Most of the time was spent sitting with the children, making puppets and talking. It was only after that solace that the stories started coming to light.

“Once we gave them the puppets, they started speaking on their own,” recalls Tittu. “Nothing was explained. We didn’t expect it. One child talked about forests. Another talked about the Ganges River, even though he had never seen it. The puppets became a place where they could say things that adults had never asked them.”

Those stories would eventually become Engel Nadhigal. Over the coming year, the children themselves will shape the script, perform it and later travel to different parts of Chennai and eventually other cities and use theater to tell audiences about disappearing rivers, environmental degradation and the world they live in.

Process matters as much as performance. “It’s hard to keep kids with us even for an hour,” says Tittu. “The one place they don’t want to go is school. That’s why we don’t recreate school. We don’t ask them to sit quietly and listen.” Instead, Agai asks adults to do something much more difficult: listening.

Srinivas says: “We are just doing little things and going with the flow.” That “flow” has become Agai’s operating word.

For Nambi Srinivas and Tittu, going with the flow would mean “creating a forest-based learning space where children enjoy learning. We don’t want them to adapt to a system. We want to build a system that grows with them.” Part of this will be photography programmes, football coaching for tribal youth and creative education rooted in local knowledge rather than imposed ideas. This is an ambitious vision for a group that believes financial uncertainty remains its biggest challenge.

The spirit of cooperation

Aagai – Theater of Voices works closely with organizations such as Vetiver Collective, Chennai Climate Action Group and Open House, sharing skills, resources and campaigns rather than protecting ownership.

It is one of the organizations behind the March for Marshlands, a rally to be held on July 25 at Besant Nagar Beach. Bringing together over 20 organizations and citizens across Chennai, the rally calls for the protection of the city’s wetlands and strong action against encroachments and ecologically unsound construction projects, especially the proposed Mammalam Reservoir project.

Agai also runs a tribal education program in the Nilgiris, supports digital comics on child rights, operates the Agai Stellar Band that composes music on environmental themes, and conducts youth outreach programs that introduce urban students to tribal communities through shared experiences rather than surveys and statistics.