Sanskriti award winners get used to new responsibilities

Thakur is another man who has stuck to his guns. He started his own paper called Janmadhyam in Orissaand the four-page fortnightly shook the government with no stories on corruption, the draught, starvation and farmers’ suicides. He did not even spare journalists and a resolution was passed against him in the press council. Thakur, 31, seems unfazed by the fact that his brainchild has been closed for the last few months.

M.S. Umesh from Chennai says that he wants to be as great as Lawrence Olivier. “This award has put a lot of responsibility in me. The playfulness in me has to be controlled.” said Kumar, 34.

He is a group leader in a theatre group called Koothu-P-Pattarai which is the only actor-trainer group in the whole of Tamil Nadu. His most acclaimed performance has been portraying Gandhi where he is having a dialogue with his bullet, soul and the three elements before he dies. “My guru came and hugged me and we cried after the performance,” he said.

Another man who has charted his own creative idiom is Umesh who believes that a sculpture has to be a complete experience including smell, sound, feel and taste. He has also acted in an award-winning film Bhumigeeta. He had started with painting signboards when in class XIII and even today his parents refer to him as an “architect” and not as an “artist”. The Beej Bachao Andolan is unique as it is truly a peoples’ movement and not a NGO involved in the complexities of funding. Based in Tehri, Dehradun and Uttrakhand, they have led a crusade against the propaganda of foreign seeds.