Rahul Gaekwad is an alumnus of the JJ school of Art, Mumbai. An interesting blend of spirituality and aesthetics. The spirituality is noticeable in his dhoti, which is designed for use in Hattha Yoga and made by the Isha ashram, Coimbatore. It is held in place by a rubber band. The spirituality is also evident in the fact that he stays in an ashram in Badlapur. The ashram has been set up by his guru, Harnad Govind Bhat (https://www.svhrc.com/). Harnad comes from the royal family of Bekal in Kerala. Is established his ashram in 22 acres of land in Badlapur. Is 78 now, and rode the bullet everyday till last year. Now Rahul commutes to Parel everyday by the Enfield bullet.
Rahul runs a Parel based firm called Tattva Creative Mentors (TCM), where he runs an internship program on holistic design. The internship project is still WIP. TCM started off with nine interns, most of them with work experience. The numbers have now whittled down to 4, out of which only one has paid! Here is one of the intern projects: http://www.thethirdgender.in
One of the laments that Rahul has about our school system, is that it does not develop character. We have become a society that is too machine dependent. Character requires discipline and meticulousness. Rahul wants to extend his holistic design theory to school education. He is at work on an integrated curriculum for this. He believes Art and Science are like Yin and Yang. Masculine science needs to be balanced by feminine art. Is a believer in the Waldorf system, which espouses that the first seven years need to be devoted to physical development, the next 7 to emotional development and rationality in the next 7 years. We can look at it as a pyramid, with the foundation coming from physicality and the apex being the intellect. The emotion snuggles in between.
He has had discussions with an ashram school in Shahapur to make a start. The ashram has land, which is important for him because his holistic system has nature as an integral part. Unfortunately the ashram school is cash-strapped. It runs on a subsidy of 800 rupees per student per month, in which the hostel facilities and boarding facilities are also provided. Hence the project got shelved. He is trying to convince his guru to start a school in the Badlapur premises – so that is still WIP.
TCM has 1400 square feet of space in an industrial estate in Lower Parel, spread across three floors. I recommended that he start the experimental school in the same space. We can target the community of homeschoolers in the neighbourhood. My advice to Rahul was that instead of working on content development, start by hiring the academic team. Math, science and language teachers. These teachers will then develop the curriculum together. The important thing is that Rahul should be at a wavelength match with his teaching team. All of these teachers will necessarily be artists, who can teach their subjects. So art will seep into every thing they do in the classroom.
He had an interaction with our teachers towards the end of his visit. One of the questions that we asked him: What work does an artist do to make a living? He talked of different career opportunities. We think of artists only as painters. To some extent that is what graphic designers do. But then there are also photographers and typographers. Inside of photography, you have genres like Product and E-Commerce, Wildlife and Nature. He gave an example of typography. When Vodafone came to India, they had to standardise their logo fonts in all Indian languages. They spent almost a crore to do that. Typography professionals can also work in font foundries. With so many scripts, it is sad that there are only 3 font foundries in India. To make your brand unique, product managers can buy fonts for a brand. Other opportunities available for artists are in calligraphy and illustration. Rahul started his own career with animation. He has worked on projects like Kellogg’s Chocos, Chhota Birbal and IPL cricket carnival. He gave an example of two of his works in Pune. The artwork on display on the roof of German Bakery, Senapati Bapat Road is made by him. There are 120 LP vinyl records, with artworks of different musicians pasted on them. Each of this is backlit by a LED. Another interesting piece of art at the same venue is painted bottles, seemingly in conversation with each other.
Pooja asked about how she can use art to teach students the Marathi font. He suggested using a calligraphy pen. The fun is in seeing thickness change as you keep the pen at an angle. Amisha pitched in saying that we could look at making alphabets using standard blocks. The alphabets need to be quite big though. Another idea is to use ropes. Or any scrap material – say broken sticks.
Nishi’s question was about art for Nursery kids. Nursery kids usually learn by copying. So what you need to do as a teacher is to make something and ask students to replicate. But the challenge is: don’t give the same medium that the teacher has worked on.
Nisha’s question was about inculcating creativity in primary level kids. Rahul’s advice was that most creative work happens outside classrooms. Group work helps foster creativity. In the specific case of PTP, where the class sizes are small, we need to make groups of 2. ANother advice he haid for the pre-teens was that teachers should try to understand their energy levels before they assign tasks to them. For example,patient students can be given tasks like quilling. Hyperactive kids, have to get involved in outdoor activities like martial art.