 "One painting at a time")
In a west Delhi slum, with a stinking public urinal and a rubbish dump as landmarks, a little art school, a National Bal Bhavan centre, has been transforming lives, one painting at a time. The students, a ragtag bunch of children aged six and above, spend every morning here before their regular school's afternoon shift. They sit on the floor, quietly going about their work as I wonder what makes art such a powerful draw for them. "This is exactly what parents in this slum asked me 20 years ago when I set up this centre," smiles Rangamma Kaul, the teacher who runs the school. "When I went from door to door in 1984, requesting them to send their children to me, parents were more than sceptical. They were quite badly off, living in a filthy slum, and could barely educate their children. Sending them to art class seemed so unnecessary."
Kaul persisted. She not only taught the students to sketch and colour in a happy environment, but also counselled them. "My students saw poverty, substance abuse and worse at home. Sometimes, the only way to reach out to them was through art," she says. "Whenever I'd find one of them suddenly using a dark colour palette, I'd ask if all was well. As he painted and talked, all I had to do was lend an ear."
Kaul's very first batch of students began winning prizes and accolades. One of the first was Bhupinder whose father was always against his art. "When he was chosen for the Bal Shree award, given to 50 of the nation's most creative young talents by the president of India, Bhupinder asked me to accompany him. I requested him to take his father instead," she reminisces. When the slum-dweller found himself in Rashtrapati Bhavan, he realised how valuable the gift of art that Kaul had given his son was. In the last 20 years, three other children have won the Bal Shree award, 17 have got into Delhi College of Art and half a dozen to Jamia Millia Islamia University, JJ School of Art and National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
Many students now have their own studios, while a good number have become art teachers. "It is not easy for people outside the slum to understand how far many of us have come," says Chand Dholia, one of Kaul's students. "Until I grew up, my uncle was the most educated man in my family and he had studied up to Class X. Today, I have a master's degree in fine arts and have exhibited my artworks in some of the capital's best galleries."
Kaul's life has been hard, but inspirational. She was brought to Delhi by her mentally ill mother as a two-day old. The first four years of her life were spent in Nari Ashram, a destitute women's home. Dance was her only escape. It was during a dance performance that Jagan Nath Kaul, founder of SOS Village in India, spotted her. For the next 20 years, she lived under his mentorship in SOS Village, even taking on his name. "Although I was well looked after, I had a deep yearning to do something of my own," says she. "I'd adopted his surname, but didn't want to be known only as my father's daughter." She got through, but dropped out of the fine arts course at Banaras Hindu University and was offered a job as a supervisor at Bal Bhavan in 1984 for a salary of Rs 4,000 per month. "I told them that many would want to work as supervisors for such a high salary, so could they give me something that nobody else wanted to do?" she recalls. That is how she found herself in Nangloi, a poverty-stricken slum settlement where the few people who were not addicted to drugs or alcohol made slippers for a living.
Now, during holidays, the number of Kaul's students soars to 300 a day. No longer does she have to convince parents - they bring their children to her instead. "I urgently need to expand the premises now," says she. The building in which Bal Bhavan has given her two rooms is in danger of falling and is termite- ridden, so she stores the students' artworks in her own house. For the last few years, Bal Bhavan has stopped providing the art material. She buys it from her salary of Rs 12,000.
What keeps her going, I wonder? She smiles, "Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour that caused paralysis on the left side. My students stood vigil for me night and day at the hospital. Everyone, even the doctors, wanted to know who I was!" The students replied that she was the Mother Teresa of Nangloi.
For more, contact Chand Dholia at 9953285411 or visit Bal Bhawan Kendra, Angrezonwali Dispensary, Nangloi (near Nangloi Railway Station), Delhi;
Next fortnight, a unique helpline that provides career counselling, scholarships and coaching to low income teenagers
Next fortnight, a unique helpline that provides career counselling, scholarships and coaching to low income teenagers
