Celebrating childhood, a time when simple sights matter

There was a time in everyone’s life when the simple sights around were of interest, be it a yawning cat or a crow perched on an electric line, or even a ‘touch me not’ in the courtyard. Those sights lose their charm for most people as they grow out of childhood or get engaged in the mad race that is life.

This teenager, Anujath Sindu Vinaylal, forces you to take a break, breathe in a whiff of fresh air and take note of some of the simple things in life that would provide you pure joy.

‘Enikku chuttum enthenthu kazhchakal!’, (Around me, a world of wonders), an exhibition of the works of Anujath that began at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery in Kozhikode on Sunday, redirects one’s attention towards these simple pleasures, and at the same time, makes one wonder why this joy is missing in the paintings made by children these days, if at all they do paint.

There is nothing unusual about the paintings, and Anujath rightly claims not to be a prodigy. His works are simple drawings, often in black ink on a white sheet of sights he saw in daily life, done for the pure joy of the artist and nothing more. There is no magic in what he has done, but the normal observation skills of a child as he takes in the sights around with his eyes wide open.

The simplicity in his works is indeed what made Anujath get noticed, for he is the recipient of the President’s Award in 2016, the top honour for any budding talent in the country, besides the Shankar’s International Award in 2019. ‘My mother and Mothers in the Neighbourhood’, which won him the Shankar’s Award, was posted on Kerala government’s gender budget cover in 2020 and was celebrated nationally and internationally. The National Book Trust published it in all Indian languages. However, Anujath does not take pride in these awards, but in the fact that the painting has become the voice of all mothers and their hardships across the world.

The exhibition, which was previously held in Thrissur and Kochi, will be in Kozhikode till May 27, opening up an avenue for children to paint to their heart’s fill without caring for perfection or appreciation, to rekindle their curiosity and joy.