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Journalism of Courage
The air around Delhi’s Kartavya Path lawns turned thick with the smell of turpentine and paints as 35,000 artists, including school children and national awardees, painted a 10-km-long canvas Friday. With brushes dipped in paint and bent over their sections, they illustrated their vision of India in 2047.
The event ‘Viksit Bharat Ke Rang, Kala Ke Sang’ was organised by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) along with Triveni Kala Sangam and Delhi University, which claimed to have made a world record.
Kalyan Joshi, a 2010 national awardee, along with his students, came from Rajasthan. Through his painting, he depicted women in various empowering roles, including two women reading and working on a computer, one as an entrepreneur of a startup, and another addressing a public gathering.
“I’m a 30th-generation artist; this art has been continuing in my family for the last 700 years. Here, I wanted to see how women have occupied spaces and various policies of the government,” he said.
Ramanand Prasad, 25, pursuing a master’s in arts from Delhi, originally from Varanasi, tried depicting the Ganga aarti of Varanasi in an abstract form. “I visualise this post the inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor,” he said.
A few metres away, Krishnum Vande, 23, pursuing art education from a Delhi college, thought that every individual is the future of India, and hence drew a self-portrait on the canvas.
“Everyone is drawing Narendra Modi, I thought I should draw myself because at the end, it is the thought in everyone’s mind that shapes the country,” he said.
While some artists said they brainstormed to put their vision into a picture, others drew recent projects launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his portraits. Some others painted freedom fighters or scientists they idolised, such as Bhagat Singh and A P J Abdul Kalam. A National Cadet Corps (NCCO) group painted armed soldiers.
NDMC vice chairperson Kuljeet Singh Chahal said, “The record for ‘most artists contributing to the same painting simultaneously; was 5,084 artists, achieved by Fundación Olga Sinclair in Panama in 2014 for a painting created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. Today, the NDMC has surpassed this record and has set a new world record.”
Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Delhi Chief Minister ekha Gupta, PWD Minister Parvesh Verma, and MPs Bansuri Swaraj and Manoj Tiwari attended the event.
The event was organised as part of the ongoing two-week ‘sewa pakhwada,’ starting from September 17 to October 2.
Gupta said this reminds the citizens of their duties. “Today, in the capital, the thoughts and dreams of various young people have been brought together on canvas with diverse colours, representing a remarkable creative confluence,” she said.
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