PUDUCHERRY: Hurry up. Gather some of your best sculptures and rush to the airport,” a voice from the other end of the phone swelled with urgency. Just outside his school, A Krishna rubbed his eyes and glanced at the phone again. It’s Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, the blue screen blinked.
The 47-year-old government school art teacher listened to the phone once again to make sense of what was happening. “Come to the airport, ma’am is on the way to Delhi. She wants to gift your sculptures to some dignitaries there,” the call ended with that.
This was not the first time Puducherry Lieutenant Governor asked for ‘waste paper’ sculptures from him. Though arrangements were in place to gift Krishna’s hand-crafted mementoes to VIPs, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a youth festival held in the Union Territory in February this year, Covid-19 threw a wet blanket on the event.
Two months had passed, and now she was asking for them again. Krishna had to rush home and get all sculptures he could lay hands on, and then head to the airport, nearly a half-an-hour drive away. Outside the Puducherry airport, Soundararajan was waiting patiently for the sculptor. When he came huffing and puffing, she received the items from him wearing a smile.
Krishna was first attracted to rumpled waste papers nearly 15 years ago. He developed a technique to make masks with them, and later, as per the advice of his guru and artist, Anbazhagan, he honed his skills and started making sculptures.
“My artist friends and I had formed an organisation ‘Puthiya Thoorigai’ to conduct summer camps for children in rural areas. During one such camp, I was making masks using crushed waste papers and balloons. It was then my guru suggested I start making sculptures with paper. For the first time, I made a human figure, earning much praise from my guru,” says Krishna.
Krishna has trained many children at government schools and colleges in Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala on the technique. The inmates of Puducherry Central Prison are also now adept at sculpting with waste papers.
At first, Krishna used to paint his sculptures with different colours. But when he heard people calling his works toys, he started experimenting with paints, and finally zeroed in on metallic colours, giving the paper sculptures an antique look. Though he started by making busts, he later honed his skills and began making models of gods and performing folk artistes.
Once, he was stopped at the Kerala check post as the personnel posted there thought he was ferrying antique sculptures, Krishna says. “I was then taken to the higher official at the check post, and was questioned. When I felt they were not believing me, I had to tear one of the sculptures off. Though they were all surprised initially, they praised my works and escorted me back to the bus,” he reminisces.
Though the artist claims paper-sculpting is simple, it’s not as easy as it seems. After looking at the photograph of the model he plans to make, Krishna draws a skeleton base using bamboo sticks, and stuffs crushed paper pieces in it using glue. Once the sculpture is ready, he applies a coat of normal paint before giving it a golden metallic look. The artist claims that his sculptures can last for around 10 years if they are kept away from water or other liquids.
S Sasikaran, a Class 12 student at Indra Gandhi Government Higher Secondary School in Puducherry, where Krishna works, says the teacher has taught him a valuable lesson — even waste carries value.
When Tamilisai’s flight soared into the skies that day with his sculptures, Krishna wondered when he would hear from her again.
It was pretty quick, and the humble artist was pleasantly shocked the very next day. Pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gladly clasping his sculptures flooded his phone. He grinned ear to ear and revelled in the triumph for a moment before his family jumped on to him with hugs, their eyes welling up with pride. While we all throw away our used papers as waste, here’s a man who is teaching us that they are anything but that.