Colours of innocence

MUMBAI, May 30: Children between the age group of three and thirteen flock to a room in the Bhau Dadji Lad Museum at Byculla to see a group...

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MUMBAI, May 30: Children between the age group of three and thirteen flock to a room in the Bhau Dadji Lad Museum at Byculla to see a group portrait of the Miss World contestants in all their finery. Confusing to the sophisticated parents, the painting seems to evoke mixed feelings among the kids, for it is the work of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl from Bhilai, Anshula Ravindra Dekate.

Anshula is a shy girl who comes alive when the talk turns to the world of colours. Then she is in her elements, authoritative yet pleasant, evocative yet naughty, mature yet childlike.

Ever ready to take a brush and mix colours, she asks for a paper and her set of water colours. On being told by her parents that sketch pens would do, she says emphatically, “I paint better with water colours.” Paternal authority is forced to give in to a painter’s stubbornness. Anshula proceeds to paint a sunset.

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The sun forms an important part in most of Anshula’s paintings, many of which have won acclaim at various competitions. But her creative talents come to the fore mostly during the late hours of the day. “Most of her paintings are done at night, at times depriving us of our sleep,” says her mother Harsha Dekate.

Having daubed papers with various paints from the time she was 18 months old, Anshula has a sharp eye for colour. She rates white as her favourite colour because she does not use it very much. But the background of most of her works is in white, thereby providing better clarity to the picture.

Leaving her mother to do most of the talking, Anshula concentrates on her work. First the images of birds, mountains and the sun in sketched with pens. Then she proceeds to paint them with the confidence and zest of a professional painter, ordering various types of brushes and paint-tubes. She insists on mixing the colours personally. "I always paint hair black because my hair is black," she says with a conviction that makes it sound like a universal truth. Birds with blue bottoms, trees covered with green mops of leaves and brown trunks and a sun in flaming red leaves a curious audience amazed at the child’s talent. "Her colour combinations are excellent," says an amazed Dr Valsan, a visitor to the museum. "So is her sense of symmetry," adds another onlooker. Birds placed at the two corners of the sheet, six mountains almost equal in shape and the sun in the middle, bears out his statement.

Space seems to inspire the young artist. "The bigger the space, the more happy she is," claims her father, Ravindra Dekate. Her larger canvasses are vibrant with different shades of red, blue and green playing havoc but at the same time adding to the beauty of the picture.

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A girl who prefers painting to toys, friends and TV, Anshula is set to enter the kindergarten course at Bhilai. A devout Hindu, Lord Ganesha occupies a vital place in most of her paintings.

Once her painting is finished, Anshula looks around at the group of admirers and withdraws into a shell. Suddenly, a young boy cries, asking his mother to buy him some paint. "I want to paint too," he says plaintively. Anshula grins, for apprentices are always welcome.