Sometimes things
turn out way different from what was originally planned and sometimes these
plans are better than what was originally envisaged. On 28th April, The Color
Caravan along with Eureka Bookstore organized its first workshop ever: a Gond
painting workshop for children with Gond artist Mangru Uike at Bumble Bees in
New Delhi.
Our initial plan was to
introduce the Gond painting workshop with the artist, Mr. Heerman Urweti. We got
amazing response from people the moment the event was announced on our Facebook
page, with bookings getting over within 2 days of the announcement. This moment
was very special to us; we realized that members of The Color Caravan family
were actually interested in learning folk art.
But our event hit an
impasse in the form of some sad news regarding Heerman’s family. He called to
tell us that he would have to miss out the workshop because his badi mummy had
passed away. We were saddened by this news because we felt for Heerman and his
family. But we were also in a bad place because we didn’t want to cancel our
first ever workshop.
And that’s when our good
friend, mentor and craft promoter, Minhaaz Majumdar came to our rescue! It was
through her we were immediately able to replace Mr. Heerman with one of her Gond
artists, Mangru Uike. But before we could give the green signal to our event we
had to call up the parents of our young workshop participants to seek permission
for the workshop with Mangru Uike and not Heerman as was originally planned. And
amazing as our TCC family is, they all agreed to have Mangru Uike lead the
workshop for us. So there we had Mangru Uike hopping onto the next train to
Delhi to conduct the workshop the next morning itself.
We had about 25 young
participants under our hat and what a fun-filled day it was with them! Mangru
Uike brought the inner genius out of all our budding artists! Every kid was busy
with their pencils and colors, simply drawing away. The kids just let their
imagination run amok in those few hours of drawing. And not only that, Mangru
made it awesome by showing them how to paint in the Gond mode. Some people
initially floundered but eventually picked up the pace thanks to our amazing
artist.
To deviate from the topic
a bit, we are sure that our readers would be interested to know a little bit
about the history of Gond art. Essentially, Gond tribal community is one of
Madhya Pradesh’s largest indigenous communities whose artistic expression lies
in deriving a meaning to life while attempting to record their local history.
These drawings are not only based on the local folklore but also are intimately
derived from images found in one’s daily life. The community also celebrates
nature in its craft which can be seen in their celebration of forests and
agriculture. But the predominant theme in these paintings have been that of
mythical beasts apart from the detailing that is done through the use of flora
and fauna, as Mangru Uike showed us.
In the end, we were enervated, but our creative abilities were never exhausted. The workshop was such a massive success that we are now inspired to conduct many more workshops for our TCC family! A hearty thanks to all those who came!
P.S. A special mention to Shreya Lahumi who was there to support us throughout! :)
In the end, we were enervated, but our creative abilities were never exhausted. The workshop was such a massive success that we are now inspired to conduct many more workshops for our TCC family! A hearty thanks to all those who came!
P.S. A special mention to Shreya Lahumi who was there to support us throughout! :)
(The
Color Caravan owns the copyright for all the photographs in this post. Cannot be
used in any form without permission.)
