Category: Pranit Nitin Bagadia

Visual Arts is a place where I can really use all of my creativity to create something new, such as a portrait, painting or another form of arts. My Visual Arts classes are conducted by Mr.Rahul Popaniya and Miss.Pankti Chauhan once a cycle. There are many forms of activities we were explored to by the help our teachers such as woodcut, pottery, painting and installations.

Drawing and painting have always been my area of weakness, because a) I never found it interesting b) I always lacked the skill of the art. I think my interest in arts have gradually increased after I joint Visual Arts. Our teachers made the class very lively and entertaining which made me more keen to understand/explore arts. I think after exploring many forms of arts in the span of one year, I have developed a new skill of drawing and basic pottery making. The woodcut was an activity that I was completely unfamiliar of, it sounded very easy when sir first introduced it to me, but when I actually started performing the activity I understood the difficulties and hardship the activity needed. For this activity I had to be dedicated and creative to complete the activity, also to complete the activity in the time span sir gave me, I had to work on it regularly for an hour at minimum, which was initially becoming strenuous.

For me the hardest form of art was “installation”, it is really very complicated and tiring, we needed to do many things beforehand which was a really headache; and after that we had to organize all the material, paint the blocks and all. The hardest part of the entire activity was creating a pattern of all the blocks, this was really very dense, because everybody in the team had different opinions and comments, which really made the atmosphere very annoying and disappointing, thus after a lot of argument between the team I came up with an idea of dividing the entire team into 3 groups, one group will arrange the top, one will arrange the middle and the other will arrange the bottom – each group had 2 students in it. I think this idea worked out pretty well, as after this distribution there was no more argument between the team.
This project itself carries a very important message for global importance – “Cycle of life”. We have decided to base our project on the idea of the ideal life every student must have. We have used the 3 primary colors – red, blue and yellow – and also white and black. These colors help represent the ideal conditions of an ideal life a student must focus to achieve. Every color has a different meaning in its context; for example, the color “yellow” represents youth, fun, happiness, the sunshine and other light playful feelings. It is a cheerful energetic color. We noticed that mainly all the students in the school were living a life they weren’t happy of, thus we decided to create this installation to symbolize the various qualities a student should have to live a happy and peaceful life. In this activity, we also came up with an ethical issue that should plagiarize or not. After a lot of internal discussions, we came to a conclusion that we should be academically honest and complete this project independently with only the help of our teacher. I later on understood that, in this project I have wasted alot of resources such as paint, paper and paint brushes even after many warning from sir, we kept on continuing with our project and wasting resources. I also think that the resources that we wasted could have been reused by other students to complete their activities or the we could have donated them to other children so that even they could enjoy art.

I really think I made the correct decision of participating in this activity because there were so many things that I learned; the different forms of art, skills of drawing and also how to undertake new challenges in arts. This activity was very effective and I think whatever I have learned in the span of a year, will help me in my future. This activity was very valuable to me because now I am able to build up an era of interest in arts which I couldn’t do in my past.

Bal Mela is a fest in which we invite and entertain students from the local schools of Surat. My role in this fest was to make those children play tug of war along with my friend Shasvat. During this fest, I felt very energetic and fresh, maybe because I could connect myself with those students or as I was just pleased to see children laughing, dancing and enjoying all around.

The one thing I perceived from this activity is that even after losing in the game, the children got up with laughter and tried harder to achieve their goals. The children lost the first round but got up with fiery spirits which helped them win the second and third round. I first thought that this activity would be a waste of time in which I will have to just entertain a handful of children just for the sake of it, but later on, I realized that I was wrong because I understood the true meaning of this activity. It showed me that you can’t find happiness by purchasing a PSP or an iPhone. One gets happiness by playing with other children, by seeing happiness made by you all around.

There are many things I learned from this activity. Firstly, I learned the skill of planning and initiating an activity. I remember how I and Shasvat were planning strategies to control so many young children while remembering to make the have fun at the same time. This skill will help me in the future because I want to be an entrepreneur. Secondly, I learned the skill of being calm in tight situations such as fights or a crowd. Finally, I learned the skill of co-operating with others as I could not have done it alone. I had literary hoped nothing to achieve from the fest, but the truth is that I learned many things. There were times when all our planning is done previously failed and we had to come up with new plans on the spot due to the mass.

I did find myself out of my comfort zone of peace and laziness, which eventually made me feel  very happy and proud of myself for doing something new with my own free will. There are been many benefits I found out of me quitting my comfort zone, which are, a)I found myself more useful in the particular circumstances, b) I had a completely new experience which I doubt I couldn’t have experienced if I preferred to be in my comfort zone. I realized out that I need to improve my skills of controlling the mass, and the skill of communicating with small kids. There were times in which Shasvat and I were facing each other in the game itself dividing the team into 2 groups, Shasvat, and mine. Enchantments such as these made our time in this activity very cheerful and entertaining. This activity also had a global concern “equality” related to it. From performing this activity we showed that there is equality between the children from different castes and religion – because we did not judge any student or school by what clothes they were wearing or their skin type. We saw very child equal and we gave them an equal amount of attention and chances.

There were many difficulties I faced, but the main difficulty was controlling the huge numbers of children at a moment. In our planning we had planned that a couple of 50 – 60 kids will come in total, but we were so wrong, in fact, we had 50 – 60 kids in every chance of the game. Thus, all our planning was inappropriate, so we quickly changed our plan to that Shasvat will explain the game to the kids, where I will look at the center mark of the rope, and we decided to take help from the bhaiya’s to help organize those kids. We were able to complete this activity because we showed high amount of commitment and perseverance in this activity – otherwise, it could have been very easy for us to quit and leave the entire activity on bhaiya’s and the other students, but we decided that we will be committed to the work we were given and prove we are capable of controlling such a mass of children. Well, the one thing I learnt about me from this activity is that I am good in changing my plans at the last moment. My overall experience of this fest was amazing, and I think I did a pretty good job in organizing those kids and entertaining them to the fullest without any criticism. At the end of the activity, I was completely exhausted and my hand was  covered with bruises, but this activity was worth it.