The Wild Room

ADWAIT PAWAR

Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology The aim of the project was to create and co-create localized, contextually relevant informal educational artefacts, awareness programs and experiences for and with children and young adults.

Location: Bandipur, Karnataka, India.

‘The Wild Room’. Original text, design and illustration by Adwait Pawar Printed by: Print Xpress, Bangalore. © 2014 Adwait Pawar

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.�

-John Lennon

Artist’s Note There isn’t one specific factor that prompted me to create this book. It is the culmination of being raised to respect plants and animals as individuals, not organisms that exist separate from daily life.

If I had to choose an incident that inspired me to write this book, it would have to be my interaction with a 4-year-old boy, Naman, whom I met when I visited his family in village called Hulekal in Karnataka. His parents were teaching him themselves, and raising him to be conscious and understanding of people, wildlife and his environment in general. He had no exposure to TV or advertising like malls or other media, which bombard kids with information. His parents read to him and taught him how to read. He was by far the smartest 4-year-old I had ever come across. The emotional depth and sensitivity he showed in his interactions with me, other children his age, the animals in and around his house, was staggering to someone like me, who was used to seeing children desensitized by city life. The questions that he asked about everything around him and his perpetual curiosity showed the depth of his thoughts.

This led me to the conclusion that developing sensitivity and the resulting understanding of larger issues that follows is something that is missing in the stories that children are told these days. This lacuna is what prompted me to choose this project; and the prevalent disconnect between children and wildlife led me to take up ‘Wildlife Trust of India: Wilderness Within’ as my pathway.

Acknowledgements To Dr. Geetha Narayanan the Director of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology for creating a space where all this was possible.

To Wildlife Trust of India, Delhi for their support and guidance.

To Kavita, Srivi and Meera for facilitating this journey through the forest.

To Anupama, Arvind and Sreekanta for showing me the ways of the wild.

To my tutor Matt for pushing me to experiment and trusting me with his books.

To my loving family, for giving me the time and space to spread my wings.

To my understanding partner Arpita, for introducing me to joy of reading and for showing me that it’s okay to take a break and go outside sometimes.

To my mercurial set of friends Moyee, Spenta, Shruti, Devangana, Shams, Maanasa, Priya, Pranav, Sumit and a handful others who have seen me in various states of insanity and still stood their ground.

Copyright Š Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology.

This book was designed as part of the Undergraduate Professional Diploma Program for the academic year 2014-2015 under the project ‘Wildlife Trust of India: Wilderness Within’ Project Mentors: Srivi Kalyan, Kavita Arvind, Meera Curam