Painting on the wall...

What more fun can the students of a school have than painting on the walls of their own school and contributing for the beautification of the school building?

In an attempt to kindle interest among the students towards painting and to provide them a platform to bring out their creativity, city based organisation Ranga Swaroopa that promotes art and cultural activities among the children, conducted a unique camp at Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Higher Primary School, Marakada recently.

The two-day camp based on the theme ‘Bhitthi Chitthara-Shale Sringara’ (beautifying the school with wall art) was held at Marakada school on March 24 and 25.

In the camp that was attended and assisted by the leading artistes of the city including Dinesh Holla, A K Zubeir Kudla, Subrahmanya Kasargod, Chandradkar, Naveen, Jeevan Salian, Harish Kodialbail, Daresh, Tharanath, Meerat, Razik, Taslima Banu, Pawan Kumar, Anwar, Rehaman Khan, dozens of school children joined their hands in painting the walls of their loving school.

The walls were painted with line art with terracotta on background upon which white lines were drawn. The walls of the school were designed with various themes like the cultural heritage of Dakshina Kannada like Yakshagana, bhootha kola, puppet show, paintings based on ‘Nali Kali’ system, life of the children etc.

At the end of the camp, the otherwise yellow walls of the school that were not painted for a long time were filled with paintings of bright red and white colours providing an added look to the school.

Speaking to City Herald, Reheman Khan who is the Convenor of Ranga Swaroopa said that the basic idea of organising the camp was to beautify the school as well as to provide a platform for the students to try wall painting or Bhitthi Chitra as it is popularly called.

“Ranga Swaroopa members who are the old students of Marakada school wanted to contribute something to the school and as we were pondering over it, emerged the idea of painting the school walls which were in a bad condition. We pooled together Rs 10,000 for the painting work and thus began the camp,” he said.

He informed that though they had painted the walls before, it was for the first time that students were allowed to paint. The students who had the practise of painting on the papers, this time experimented with the walls.

Despite the camp being held on weekend, it did not dampen the spirit of the students. In fact, majority of the students from I Std to VIII Std participated in the camp giving shapes to their ideas. The teachers too joined their hands in the task and motivated the children for active involvement.

Amith Rai, VIII Std student who participated in the camp said that it was a “great experience” to paint on his school walls and he was “very happy” that he got an opportunity to do so. “I was always interested in art and was trying my hands in painting on the paper.

But to paint on the wall was a different thing altogether,” he said. He did not stop himself from hoping that the team would also come to the high school that he will join next year and conduct the similar camp.