Rohit Anand, an 18-year-old autistic teenager, strides into the Dravidia Gallery in Fort Kochi and goes straight to his exhibit. There are three paintings side by side, all of them acrylic on canvas. The first titled ‘I want’ is a self-portrait of him standing next to a young girl. “This is Manasi. She used to come to Sense Kaleidoscopes (an autism school in Bengaluru) where I study. Now she is not there. I miss her. I like Manasi a lot. We used to play snakes and ladders,” says Rohit pointing at the image. Founder-director of Sense Kaleidoscopes, Akshayee Shetty says, “Rohit has been thinking about girls. Children with autism have the same needs as teenagers everywhere.
If the youngster is thinking of wanting a girlfriend, there is nothing wrong with that.” In the next artwork, Rohit is again the subject, his mouth open in anger, his teeth bared, eyes filled with rage, while above him is a mirror that has been broken in places. “On November 2, 2015, it was my friend Ayush Bambani’s birthday. He was crying a lot.
The sound angered me, so I broke a mirror.” In the third piece titled ‘Voices’, his face is distorted, resembling a Salvador Dali painting. There are word blurbs all around, with angry messages in it. “I feel very upset when my mother or somebody else scolds me,” says Rohit about this painting. Similar paintings were showcased at the Outsider Art exhibition, where 38 artists displayed a total of 64 artworks. The show was organised by former Navy commander and art lover, Ajai Vadakkath, and his wife Priti, who are parents of a 17-year-old autistic son.
Priti is an artist while her brother Vivek Vilasini has been a featured artist in the first edition of the Kochi Muziris Biennale. As a result, Ajai had been a volunteer at the inaugural Biennale and became friends with co-founder Bose Krishnamachari. So, he sent his son’s artwork to Bose and the latter was impressed. “Bose, it’s about time these kinds of works were brought to the mainstream.
Can we get the support of the Biennale Foundation?” recalls Ajai about a conversation with Bose, who agreed immediately. Ajai reached out to parents from Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad about the exhibition. “There is another huge autism group in Yahoo groups. There are more than 4,000 parents. I mentioned clearly that this is not a sympathy exhibition. It is a merit-based. In fact, Bose told me, ‘I will look at the art, I will not look at the level of disability, nor the age. I don’t want to be biased’,” says Ajai.
The 33-year-old Swaminathan, one of the oldest participants, sees an image but he only knows how to represent it through lines. Not surprisingly, his work, ‘Chennai Central’ shows the railway station through lines. On the other hand, Pranav Nair prefers to use triangles, rectangles, circles and squares. Ayush likes dogs, so he draws the animal all the time.
Some of the other artists who participated included Sidharth Murali, Sachin Joshi, Indubala, Sakshi Chawla, Kalash Kariappa, Sanjay, Tanisha Lahiri, Melvina and Kajal Ashar. “They have a genuine talent. I did not know that so many of them were so artistic. This is the first of its kind for the Biennale Foundation. We would like to do similar exhibitions in other cities,” says Bose about the exhibits.