I have always had trouble expressing myself
orally. As a child, whenever I was asked questions I would just lower my head
and not say anything even if I knew the answers. I would try to avoid
situations which required me to speak in front of people. It scared me. I won’t
deny it, there are times when I still avoid such situations, I am still scared.
But I want to express myself, I want people to know what I am thinking and what
I feel. That is where art has played a significant role in my life. I have
always expressed myself better through writing and drawing.
I joined Mirambika (a school for
alternative education) when I was four. It didn’t take me long to settle down
as the environment was just right for me – open classrooms, lots of trees and
huge fields. Mirambika was my starting point, a place which gave me the space
and time to understand myself and nurture my talents. It taught me that I can
express myself just by doing what I love to do.
Most of my days in Mirambika were spent
observing the ambience around me and quickly capturing it in my sketchbook. I
remember sitting under the Banyan tree, the centre of the school, just
observing the geese, squirrels, trees etc. It was soothing in a way. My early
days in Mirambika were spent creating stories and illustrating them. I felt I
saw the world better through my sketchbook. We put up plays and puppet shows
and made the props on our own. And slowly I realized that this is what I want
to do, I want to draw, write, paint and design because it made me happy, it was never
a burden.
I have always had a keen interest in cartoons
and comics. I spend a lot of time watching cartoons, animes and reading manga.
I used to design comics as a child, drawing boxes and making them look like an
actual printed comic book. This was encouraged by my family, friends and
teachers.
When I shifted to a mainstream school,
suddenly everything I loved to do was becoming irrelevant because of examinations,
competitions etc. I was asked many times to go for art competitions, but
somehow it didn’t appeal to me. Art was never about competing for me. Everyone
has different styles, different views. I don’t believe that art can be compared
like that.
As I have grown older, and after observing
the works of well-known artists and painters like Van Gogh, Picasso, Ramkinkar
etc., I have come to realise that art is not separate from its context. In fact
art is and can be a powerful medium to draw attention to important social,
cultural and political issues. It is essentially a medium of communication between people and
society. Its relevance lies there. And that is what I want to do. I want to
articulate myself through what I know best, a medium which has always been
there for me.
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