Home

Projects | Art | Writings | In the news

MY JOURNEY

Pursuing my projects and other interests allows me to discover lessons on the road. My learning takes place while attempting to bring ideas to life with the community around me. Observing, travelling, interacting, reflecting, reading, painting, and writing help me form and reform my perspectives on the world and I try to do that wherever I am.

An interest in art developed at the age of three while playing with colours and since then painting has been a medium through which I express my thoughts and emotions. It also helps me engage with the world and find new perspectives. I began spending time with artists Shomi Banerjee, MG Doddamani, and Shan Re and held exhibitions in 2011 and 2014. I spent time in galleries and art symposiums which helped me observe and appreciate diverse forms of art. It also got me in touch with other artists and my interactions with them taught me much. 

My curiosity about consumers and producers of food and recycling waste material led to my attempts in trading organic spices (that I sourced from rural Odisha) and scrap to understand them better during my school days. I wanted to create more value out of the scrap and I eventually designed a large, public-use dustbin made out of scrap (using paper mache, chicken mesh, and iron frames)  which was developed with the help of a welding shop owner, and a few volunteers. Seventeen of them are being used in a school. 

In retrospect, art has been making me more sensitive to what’s happening around me. I began enjoying cycling and interacting with people on the road. It helped me get a closer look into the lives of people around me and helped me understand how a crowd with diverse personalities on different paths come together as a society. I also was experiencing and understanding the state of cycling infrastructure in the city. 

Getting shortlisted to become the Bicycle Mayor of Bangalore allowed me to meet other cycling enthusiasts and those who wanted better cycling infrastructure in Bangalore. In 2018, I initiated a campaign that involved cycling across the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra to understand the issue of bullying and sexual abuse while spreading awareness along the way to Mumbai in towns and cities. 

I felt that art could connect people in a more personal manner and designed prints that were used on tees. I also designed bamboo bags and developed them in collaboration with bamboo workers in Odisha. This interest led to my observation of the creation of such products and my interaction with some of their creators in rural Odisha, Bombay and Bangalore. Currently, I am attempting to promote diverse art forms and craft traditions in collaboration with local communities through a pilot project.

An interest in media and wanting to bring diverse perspectives together led to setting up ‘The Grey Review’ (www.TheGreyReview.com). Scouring newspapers and the net for writers, requesting writers to contribute to the website, and contributing opinion pieces has been my progress so far.

My passion for politics leads to trips to meet local voters, party workers from different political parties, opinion writers, and politicians. I also keenly follow elections and try and understand underlying trends that I attempt to connect with what’s happening on the ground. Some of my experiences and my understanding are currently being captured in my writings. 

At present, I am completing my academic studies as well.