In the Fold

IF you used to fold paper boats and planes as a child, you8217;re already in the door. But if you were one of those superior-grade kids who...

IF you used to fold paper boats and planes as a child, you8217;re already in the door. But if you were one of those superior-grade kids who could fashion a sailboat, a double boat, or even a jet plane out of a piece of newspaper, then you probably have an unexploited reserve of origami talent.

For me, it was my preference for all things non-messy. For instance, when it comes to eating, I8217;d pick an apple over a mango. Hence the fact that origami is simple paper folding raised to the level of art8212;with no glue, scissors or even paint involved8212;appeals enormously to me. That, and a faint memory of a floral, pink paper frog8212;a gift to a four-year-old me from a blonde man who was travelling in the same train bogey as my family. And amazingly for a non-mechanical creature, if you pressed down on my paper pet8217;s well crafted hinney, it leapt.

Origami Mitra, the country8217;s only registered origami club, teaches anyone who8217;s interested8212;whether a Grade A paper plane-maker or not. I volunteer. Who knows, maybe it8217;ll be one of the many random things that could earn me a few valuable points on a Canadian immigration form. Not that I8217;m moving to Canada, but hey, I8217;m Punjabi.

I landed up at the office of a civil engineer who8217;s been an origamist and a member of Origami Mitra for the past 25 years. The club has a website but it doesn8217;t have an office and its members are an eclectic lot. There8217;s a St Xavier8217;s College Mumbai chemistry professor who uses the art to teach mathematics; another follower uses origami as a part of rehabilitation therapy for drug, alcohol and tobacco addicts.

Over the next four hours, Lina Barwe, an insurance agent and two-year-old paper-folder, taught me various folding techniques and their names. Although folding a piece of paper sounds simple, the trick lies in memorizing the direction and order of every nip and tuck. For instance, when you fold a sheet of paper, the upward popping crease is a 8216;mountain8217; fold, while the reverse is a 8216;valley8217; fold. And, like the names suggest, the two are very different from each other. If you confuse one for the other, or make a wrong turn in the middle of creating that perfect amphibian, you could end up with a crumpled mass of paper and frayed nerves.

All models, whether a simple flower or a complicated scorpion which involves more than a hundred folds, emerge out of a handful of standard bases. A preliminary number of folds make a base, over which you can build the model of absolutely anything under the sun. 8216;8216;There are 19 types of origami,8217;8217; Barwe informed me, listing names like floral origami, animal origami, utility origami and minimal bordering on abstract origami. And in her effort to convert me, she gave an animated lecture on the various applications of origami in daily life what came to my mind were the foldable laundry baskets sold on trains and in the scientific field the Hubble Telescope, Pathfinder. Another member of the club, Barwe informed me, held a workshop for inmates of the Thane Central Jail, Mumbai; he reportedly continues to receive folded paper cards from them.

At the end of the class, besides the instruction 8216;8216;practice makes perfect8217;8217;, I had a bagful of assorted items to take home, including a butterfly, a flower of course, and 8216;action8217; models like a talking crow and a flying bird. The leaping frog is an advanced class instruction.

Story continues below this ad

And since origami is considered a symbol of peace, the next time my boss yells at me, I8217;ll hand her a paper flower.

Catch the Origami Peace Tree Festival at Mumbai8217;s Ravindra Natya Mandir, from January 24 to 29