The missing coconut tree

The other day, I have arranged painting competitions for employees’ children from class one to ten. This is a routine painting competition held in the run up to New Year where the best painting selected for Greeting Cards. This year there was no theme though the cad size defined to 5” X 7”. It was pleasant to look at their creation. All the paintings were so aesthetically prepared that they will give run to the professionals. Colour combination was superb. Concept-wise, these paintings are very relevant. I was just thinking of my schooldays and the way I used to paint. I was just comparing painting of our time, the colour combination and themes to those of NTPC Childrens’ painting.

My early schooldays’ memories at my village school are still fresh in my mind. I still remember how my school teacher Late Shri Dandpani Jena taught paintings. He jovially asks, ‘Pile patra sahita gotia ambar chitra kaar’. (Children, do paint a mango alongwith leaf.) And within 15 to 20 minutes, we all painted on our mud slate using white chokes. That was fun. It is like a popular adv: Budu kaua kabhi colourful hota he kiya. But at our school, we used to make mango white. Few other popular things that we used to paint regularly irregular in our UP schooldays are: Ladder, boat, pot, tree, fish and household things. He never asked to paint Train, Airplane, Industry, etc. May be my teacher wanted us to paint those things which we are very much exposed or things that are part of our (rural) culture.

During our ME schooldays things changed little. In class Seven there was a separate paper in painting containing 50 marks. On every Saturday there was period dedicated for painting. My literature teacher Shri Prakash Chnadra Rath was in charge of painting class. Here, actually we started painting on paper and used colour pencil. Here again, themes are mostly related to our lifestyle, culture and surrounding. Themes like Bullock Cart, Saree Border, Scenery, Jhoti, thatched house, etc. As most of us hail from agrarian family, we are very close to bullock cart. Except one or two, most of us have thatched house. In every Odiya house, there are thirteen festivals in twelve months and houses were decorated with Jhotis especially in the month of Margsir. The scenic paintings are close to our heart and reflected the surroundings. Fortunately, my village is surrounded with mountains, forest, river, stream, ponds and green rice fields. For a nature lover, it is a perfect village. As a typical scenic painting, our scenic painting contained mountain range, sunrise/sunset, stream, two/three coconut trees, hamlet, birds, tube well and muddy road. After class seven there is no sincere effort to learn the intricacy of painting. Virtually, it came to an end. In fact, I am not good in painting.

Looking at the paintings of NTPC children, I was so pleased that I cannot keep myself praising their effort to bring out such a nice copy. Their themes cover almost all relevant issues be it environment, animal, pollution, safety, save earth, save electricity, health, cleanliness, and, of course, the scenery. However, the interesting thing I have noticed in a scenic painting was: Telephone Tower/Mobile Tower.

Instead of coconut tree, the scenic painting was filled with Mobile tower. It is not her fault. What she has seen/observed that reflected in her painting. She spent her life in urban area and watched these high-rising mobile towers. In fact, today every town and rural area is crowded with mobile tower.

This is the change. Though, it is not visible but making inroad into our life, culture and day to day activities. It is not the Coconut tree Vs Mobile tower, in fact there are so many things changed in the last two decades. May be it is the difference of Our times and Theirs times.