It was the big three O. We were racing against time to get there. Predictably so. We envisaged a wall project with Sunday MiD DAY'S 30th anniversary theme, Preview Mumbai, which would affect how we perceived art and life in the coming months, as its centrepiece
It was the big three O. We were racing against time to get there. Predictably so. We envisaged a wall project with Sunday MiD DAY'S 30th anniversary theme, Preview Mumbai, which would affect how we perceived art and life in the coming months, as its centrepiece. Imagine a sea link on the wall, a clown, a bluesman, all drawing from the theme. The possibilities were endless, and the future, vibrant. Unpredictably, the artist dropped out at the nth hour.
With a five-day deadline, we dialled Jugaad (https://jugaad.tumblr.com/) for help. The seven month-old design agency, we realised, was a one-woman army, which lived upto its name. Amrita Bagchi, a 26 year-old visual artist found many ways to turn into a jugaadu, a gatherer of resources. She reasoned that Bandra, where she worked, lent itself to innovation and a community way of life. An elderly neighbour offered her a stool to sit on as she painted, the driver of an auto that put-putted through the narrow alley dished out advice, "Place paint boxes on a wooden plank, men. It's easier to move everything at once. Pre-tweens dropped by to fill in the drawing with colour.
As roosters roamed the roofs, cats and dogs lounged around with eyes half open, not a leaf seemed to move in lazy Kantiwadi. Only Bagchi worked her fingers swiftly. With one day to finish, she worked a 16-hour shift, redoing the entire theme. But that's another story. With help from 12 year-old Ella D'abreo, her 10 year-old sister Liesl (they had just finished their exams, and had little to do) and Sudeip V Nair, founder of Bombay Elektrik Project that promotes deejays and artists in the city, Bagchi painted us our own little wall of fame.
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