Colours of life

For some leprosy victims in chennai, india, life has suddenly taken on the shades of the rainbow, thanks to Werner Dornik, an Austrian artist.

It's an art school with a difference. Here, students learn to paint using brushes that are secured to their hands with rubber bands.

Why? Because at the Bindu Art School, in Bharatapuram Colony, in Chennai, India, the budding artists are victims of leprosy.

And because their fingers are reduced to stubs, the only way they can hold a brush is by attaching it in some way to the palms of their hands.

Till recently, most of those living in this colony eked an existence by positioning themselves beside roads and shrines and seeking alms from passersby. Some of them earned a few rupees a day through various government-sponsored rehabilitation projects.

Then, one day, for many, life took a turn for the better thanks to two people - Padma Venkataraman, daughter of former President of India R. Venkatarman, and a woman who is involved in a lot of social causes, and Austrian artist Werner Dornik.

Dornik first met Padma way back in 1993 in Vienna where she was residing at the time.

"I was aware of Padma's work with the leprosy affected. So I asked her if she could give a talk on leprosy for a CD presentation which I had organised at the Academy for Fine Arts, in Vienna," recalls Werner.

He had just initiated a project to help the leprosy affected in certain parts of the world. He had, on previous visits to India, seen how people suffered from the disease and was keen to do his bit to alleviate their misery.

Thus, sometime in 2004, he accompanied Padma on a visit to the colony in Chennai.

One of the first things that struck Werner on the morning of his visit to Bharatapuram was the pretty kolams (a traditional practice of drawing intricate patterns using fine rice flour on the floor in front of the huts).

"If they could draw flowers and pretty patterns, why not lead them into art? It could be wonderful therapy," he told himself.

While the incidence of leprosy in India has declined vastly due to the government's National Leprosy Eradication Programme, the victims of the disease still the means to restore their self respect and dignity, not to speak of earning a living.

"(They were looking for) something that would give meaning to their lives," explains Werner. "And art can do that."

He suggested setting up an art school for the people in the colony - a place where they could give vent to their creative abilities. It could even be a place to develop the skills of potential artists.

Padma was also enthused by the idea and she promptly decided to meet with the people and seek their views.
But the going was not easy: "We don't think it will work," said some, dejection writ all over their faces.

"How can we ever paint? We have never done anything like this in our life," was the common refrain.

Still others thought the very idea was far-fetched. The leprosy victims had suffered enough humiliation and had been the victims of social stigma and were not sure how an art school would help them gain respectability, even social acceptance.

"Seeing their lack of interest, Werner was quite frustrated," recalls Padma. A day before his departure to Austria, Padma gave the idea one more try. She went back to the colony to persuade the people to reconsider the idea.

Perhaps it was her earnest plea, the intensity of her belief or her long association of trust with them, but Padma's last-ditch attempt had its effect. A few came around and agreed to enroll at the school.

Thus in February 2005, the Bindu Art School was born. It has 21 students.

Bindu in Hindi means a point from which everything originates. The students, aged between 25-84, were given sheets of paper and two poster colours, black and white.
For the first three weeks, they painted using just black and white.

"There were no rules nor were they any assessments for good or bad art," says Werner. "I did not get into any technical details about the art works. My students were free to paint anything they wanted."

Mountains, flowers, mythological images, fish, animals ... sketches in black and white filled the pages as
the students unchained their feelings and imagination.

After three weeks, Werner introduced the colour blue.
Three weeks later, blue was substituted with yellow.
Slowly, the paintings began to become brighter, more colourful.

The following three weeks saw red replacing yellow - the art turned bolder. While one drew a landscape showing the sun rising behind a range of mountains, another drew a woman draped in a black sari and wearing a red blouse.

Werner was overjoyed. His plan seemed to be taking shape. From the beginning Werner began to live in the colony with his ‘students', eating with them and walking arm in arm with them ... he was as much a part of the colony as they.

For his students, this was a strange and a new feeling. It took them a while to get used to. Rarely before had perfect strangers come up to them, embraced them or even sat down with them to share a meal.

And here was this smiling foreigner encouraging them to develop their abilities even as he lived and dined and walked with them.

"That felt real good," says N. Udayakumar, a 41 year-old student of this school.

As far as Werner was concerned, to him students were just as much people as the non-afflicted. He was determined to make a positive difference their lives.

Assisting Werner at the school were two Chennai-based artists, V. Anamika and N. Ramachandran. They answered the technical doubts the students had about colours, media, brushes, etc.

Tone Fink, an artist from Vienna and a friend of Werner's, took the project to a higher level. He taught them body and sound games which helped them relax and thus bolster their creative abilities.

At the end of 12 weeks, Werner's students had five colours on their palette.

Suddenly, their lives seemed to have more than just shades of black and white. Now there was an unrestrained explosions of hues - in blue, yellow, red; a kaleidoscopic of expressions on paper canvasses.

Looking back on the start of the enterprise, Padma says, "We thought their frustration, anger and depression (about their condition) would be reflected in their paintings. But from Day One, their paintings have all been about cheerful subjects."

The joy reflected on the canvas seeped into heir hearts and minds too. Art provided them a diversion from their daily suffering and pain.

Says Werner: "After a month, we noticed a change in their attitude. They no longer bickered over anything or quarrelled among themselves. Many told us that they also slept well."

The day begins with meditation
A typical day at Bindu Art School begins at 9am. The students are asked to meditate for 10 minutes.

This done, they take rough pencil sketches of their ideas to Janet Rosalyn James, 32, a coordinator at the school. Rosalyn approves a few, suggests a few changes to others and the students begin work.

At 11am, they disperse for lunch. Classes resume at 3.30pm and continue until 5.30pm.

"Initially, my family was not happy about my joining the (art) school," says Rosalyn, hinting at the stigma which some people still associate with leprosy. "It took a lot of convincing.

"Now, it's been two years working with the students. I have seen Werner and Padma interact freely with them and this has helped me overcome my own fears."

The art students are paid a stipend of Rs900 every month. Fifty per cent of the earnings through the sale of paintings are distributed among the students. The rest is pooled back to the school's kitty to train new students.

Last year, seven new students were admitted to the art school. This noble and novel initiative works on the concept of self-help and is not a charitable project.

In 2006, an exhibition of their paintings was held at Kolkata, New Delhi and Chennai.

Exhibition at Vienna
Last September, four students, J. Jayalakshmi, 26, N. Udayakumar, 41, A. Rani, 58 and E. Ramamoorthy, 60, escorted by Padma, visited Vienna for an exhibition of their works at Kunsthalle Wein Art Gallery.

It was the first time they had travelled outside the country and it was a wonderful and liberating experience for them. Not in their wildest dreams had they imagined that one day they would be exhibiting their works in a foreign country.

"Prior to our departure, I cautioned them not to react if anyone stared at them since Hansen's disease is relatively unknown in Europe. But to our surprise, people were very nice. On public transport systems, people would often get up to offer their seats to our artists," she says.

The response at the exhibition was overwhelming ... but after a few days' stay, Padma noticed her students were looking listless. What's troubling you, she asked them. Meekly, one of them said, "Can we get to eat idli-sambar (a staple breakfast item in south India)? We are tired of eating bread."

Padma immediately made arrangements with a few friends in the Indian community in Vienna who took turns to supply Indian food to the artists every day.

Others volunteered to take the students on sight-seeing trips.

This particular trip was sponsored by Rising Star Outreach, an NGO based in the US in association with the Indian High Commission. The Austrian ambassador in New Delhi, Dr. Jutta Stefan-Basti, waived the visa fees for the students.

From Vienna, the paintings travelled to the US where the sale proceeds were $4,000.

"More paintings were sold after seeing them on the website," says Padma. "Now we have more people from the colony keen on joining the school."

Bindu Art School makes its students self-reliant, self-confident and financially independent. Today, all of them have a savings bank accounts or a post office account.

What is art?
Werner, who believes in the words of Pablo Picasso that "art should be like a sharp knife or a weapon, in order to prevent abuses, injustices, violation of human rights or wars," says, "This is my art at the moment."

Werner surprised his students last year when he visited Bharatapuram colony on December 4.

It was an emotional moment for him as his students walked into his arms with tears running down their cheeks. The friend who had changed their lives had returned. And new dreams would be painted once more.

For more information log on to www.bindu-art.at. Werner can be contacted at w.dornik@utanet.at and Padma at padma42@yahoo.co.in