PUDUCHERRY: On a sunny evening near the beachside in Puducherry; a small crowd was seen cheering and applauding as a middle-aged man skillfully transformed a piece of plastic into a beautiful rectangular table mat within minutes. If I say this man was once a tax officer in Australia, would you believe me?
Satyajit Agarwal is not just an art enthusiast. For hundreds of youngsters and women in Puducherry, he is a mentor who taught them the art of transforming plastic waste into useful products. The 48-year-old is on a mission to make the union territory a clean city.
“I grew up in Puducherry and always remember the city as a clean place. But when I came back from Australia in 2014, there was a drastic change to this beautiful memory. There was litter everywhere and I couldn’t even bear the sight. That’s when I decided to do something to save my second home,” says Satyajit.
Born to a Haryana-Punjabi family in Delhi, Satyajit was sent to the Sri Aurobindo ashram when he was 11 years old. Later, he graduated from Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry and completed a Master of Professional Accounting from the University of Tasmania in Australia, where he continued to work as a tax officer.
After returning from Australia, he started the service by cleaning beaches. Soon, a realisation struck him — just dumping waste into nearby dustbins would not be a viable solution in the long run. After several rounds of trial and error, he taught himself to stitch together plastic wrappers and covers with a needle and a pair of scissors into various works of art — flowers, storage baskets, and even slippers. He cut, rinsed, and dried plastic bags. Turning those into long strips, he created works of art with them.
For Satyajit, this has been a long voyage with its own ups and downs. Right from making baskets, lampshades, and pocketbooks to weaving buckets, slippers, toy boats, and sails, Satyajit’s aim is to illustrate the versatility of the medium by using nothing but one’s hands, eyes, and imagination.
“During my years in Australia, I noticed that the people there were very conscious and aware of the importance of waste management. They are always looking for ideas to recycle waste or find ways to dispose of it without harming the environment. This is what I’m trying to achieve here too,” he says.
The initiative, however, was too big for him to execute alone. So, coupled with his 80-year-old mother and sister, he started teaching interested people from the locality to transform plastic waste materials into pieces of art. Later, he started visiting schools and other educational institutions with the same cause and spreading awareness about recycling plastic waste.
He has also adopted two villages – Panaiyur and Kurumbapet – and is teaching the residents the process of recycling. Further, he volunteers as a teacher in these villages and helps children learn English, French, and Hindi for free. He also conducts free workshops for the locals.
Satyajit is also not interested in selling his artwork. “People always come to me asking the price of each product made of waste materials. But my intention has never been to sell and make money; it’s more about making a statement and spreading awareness,” he gushes.
However, he helps people, especially village women, to make a living out of the artwork. Recently, around 20 art pieces made by these women were for sale in the ‘Zero Waste Festival’ conducted in Puducherry. Talking about his inspiration, Satyajit says, “I work for the planet and it is a great honour to work for such a beautiful and powerful entity. The biggest threat to Earth is the belief that someone else will save it.”
(Edited by Sneha Joseph)