“Where is the Tree didi? When will it grow?” Rani was constantly asking the question. A five year old girl- daughter of a construction labourer, was deeply involved in the art piece I was trying to make with a group of children.
If you want to know more about Meenakshi Jha and Jey Sushil
Working with kids is never easy. Especially when the children are unknown, it gets difficult to make them listen to you.
When Jey told me that we are going to spend the weekend with the children of Construction labourers in JNU, I was excited but a bit apprehensive as well.
I wanted them to engage in collective creative endeavor. So we planned to create a tree with all these kids: Tree of Life. We intended to give them a hint of their collective potential. Besides this, it would have also helped them in understanding their relation with nature and nature’s system.
Around 30 Unnoticed children and responsible members of the organization were waiting for us when we reached the spot with our bag of colours. I gave a prep talk to the kids and told them what we are going to do.
I asked for chart papers and anything disposable they had with them. We got old newspapers, magazines, napkins and chart papers. We had to make the art piece with these things.
MAG in GOA: Tutu-Butu and Big Fish
We made a big 12 feet base and started coloring napkins, papers, and tore tiny leaf like pieces from newspapers and magazines. For nearly two hours kids continued coloring the papers with bare hands.
Rani kept asking even then- where is the Tree? She was painting bits of napkins and her hands were red with colors. Her chubby innocence filled my heart.Another little beauty with a colorful scarf on her head was concentrating on tearing colored pieces of disposable papers for leaves.
The elder ones were guiding them. After finishing the leaves and flowers, we started making the trunk of the tree. For that I had red soil with me. We mixed soil with glue and asked the kids to make the trunk with the paste (soil-glue-water)
All the kids almost jumped at my words. For them it was an opportunity to play with mud that too as a part of a fun-art. All of them instantly had their fingers dipped into the little bowl of mud. Everyone wanted to create the trunk.
Rani went to Jey and said. Where should I paint? Jey helped her and tree came into life.
When the tree was ready on the floor, Rani came to me and asked- ‘Where is the Tree didi?’ Oh! We almost forgot that the tree is to be looked upon and not looked down at. Now the challenge was to erect the Tree which we did with the help of all the kids.
Finally the huge art piece got pasted on the wall. A barely two feet tall Rani standing in front of 12 feet tall Tree exclaimed with happiness- ‘Here is the tree’ and announced further- ‘I made this BIG tree’. It was ‘my tree’ for her and for all other kids as well.
They all wanted to get a picture with their tree. For them it was a Tree of Joy.
I wanted to make the Tree of Life and ended up making ‘TREE OF JOY’. But isn’t what life means with kids…….JOY only Joy.
