Sea of colors in Desert

Another day, another school, another chance to create something new.

By now we had learnt a little more about the Gandhi Fellows and we decided to involve them in our madness along with the kids.

This school was smaller than the previous one with fewer students but equipped with separate learning rooms. I was excited and ready to try my hand on something big.

In the morning assembly we asked the children what is it that they want to paint on their school wall but nobody replied. Perhaps just like us they were also not very sure of what to paint. Then Jey blew his whistle as if to wake everybody from sleep and I asked what is it that is scarce in Rajasthan? Along with many mumbles came a faint voice- ‘water’.

“So can we paint river, or sea?” asked Jey.

“Yessss…” came the chorus answer.

And we marched on to the designated wall with Jey heading the group blowing his whistle.

I drew a line to demarcate sea level and a big ship on a 30×15 feet wall.

While I was busy discussing with Jey how to group kids and what jobs to assign them, Ashish, a very shy Gandhi fellow redid my whole drawing. It was good to see him participating in the creative process on his own.

Then I requested Richa, another fellow, to guide kids in making colourful paper boats and she happily agreed. She loves carving jail design on paper. Similarly every fellow was put on work according to their interest.

One group of kids made paper boats; one group cut fishes, shrimps, octopus, and many other imaginative sea creatures while the fellows along with Jey painted the sea with a long bunch of threads.

They made blue colour with indigo and fevicol and imprinted wave pattern with the threads on the wall.

All grown-ups including principle, teachers and of course the fellows and us dirtied their hands blue. Pradeep, one of the fellows, imprinted thread pattern on the outer walls of principle office.

It was real fun time.

When Jey announced that we will be sticking colourful boats on to the ship, every student who had made boats collected their boats and rushed to the wall.

It was little difficult to calm down excited kid but Jey worked magic with his whistle. All kids made a queue holding their colourful boats in their hand and waited for their turn.

Finally colourful boats were stuck on the big ship, fishes were stuck on the blue waves and the sun shone brightly on it. Later a child brought a paper cutting of Indian flag which we stuck on the front deck of the ship.

The painting was complete.

Oh Yes …….forgot to show you the picture of the mural…so here it is…Enjoy the boat of education in the sea of desert called Rajasthan.