We had asked the kids from 6th to 9th kids on the theme, ‘If they are creating their world, How would it be?’. Such an abstract theme for adults, right?
Some of the things kids drew are,
Samosa clouds, Noodle trees, chicken feet tree so that anyone can bite and eat and no one would be hungry! Ice cream trees, Reading a book to a herd of sheep (I don’t know what is he thinking, Anyone?)
Heart-shaped earth so that continents would be close to each other and no fights, No schools, No examination, Burning maths and science books. Clean earth where everyone can fly or cycles will fly so that there no would be no vehicles, half-human- half butterfly and they can talk to each other, humans can fly, birds cant, Space ships everywhere, Humans will have no face, No sound in their world and a few a written about no caste and religion as well. A robot with a heartbeat and Heartbreak stories with, ‘Love is not real’. Both, the sun and moon would exist together.
Some kids just wanted to be alone and some kids named their planets after their friends and family. And, Dinosaurus will be as pets and the conversations were hilarious and a few had written that there won’t be any jealousy among each other. One kid had drawn how is his life is sad because everyone is telling him that he is not good enough’ so in his world such people would get heart attack when they say that. (Isn’t this sad and funny?) No fights, Everyone will be always konjify-ing each other (Baby talks, Pampering), A world only with children and a world where children come first in the hierarchy before God, A world where you could talk to the world and control the clouds and seasons ( he had actually written that way farmers would be happy) and such colourful abstract things!
If only we could leave behind a better world for them! Based on the children’s artworks, Sethulakshmi Vinayan and I came up with a very unrealistic, ambitious plan that we would paint a mural incorporating a few of the characters from their painting in one and a half days🤦♀️
We Pulled in 15 kids and forced 4 alumni of the school to do this in the last minute (We called them at 3.30 in the evening asking, ‘please come da’ and they were here by 4.30) and all of us worked in batches to finish this over 19 hours on Saturday and Sunday to finish this! A lot of things we do here are so random. We decide the design on Saturday, Request the school for supplies, teachers spoke to their parents for permission and management supported us, Make the kids directly paint on wall, make them climb on 2 benches (all of this is stupid and probably deserves #onlyinIndia) anyway, we are proud of this ‘Chalo’ culture on some days:P Its a complete school community work which makes all these work really pleasurable and gives us more satisfaction!
Essentially, to sum up,(from one kid’s art)
Human sitting on its head -Hey , Dino, inga fasta va
Dino: ‘why’
Human:Chumma, Jolly irrukum,Vettiya thana irrukom
Dino: Okay Boss, Ippovae Varean (Rajini Style)
Thinnai 