In Bachhwada Dhana in Madhya Pradesh

On one of our sketching trips from Riyaaz Academy* in Hoshangabad, we visited Bachhwada Dhana, a small village on the banks of the Narmada river. The village folk looked at us with curiosity. They immediately got out their charpoy in a gesture of hospitality and asked us to sit down.

The village gets inundated when the  river is in spate.An old man who thinks we are from the government asks us to do something about it. We try hard to explain that we are not government officials but he does not believe us. His wife gives us a cup of sweet tea and the man tells us of how, in the last spate, he lost much of his property, Won't  the government help him?

It is a community of farmers and fisherfolk. Some of them were great models, patiently allowing us to sketch them. Here I met Sanjana. A little girl with bright eyes and beautiful sparkling teeth. She hung around while I sketched and introduced me to her friends - Madhu, Manisha and Jannu. She quickly runs to her house and gets me a Bael fruit ( Wood apple). She also gave me one of my most treasured possessions for still life and learning about form and understanding construction in drawing - A dried Calabash gourd/ bottle gourd.  It has a lovely rounded shape that is pleasing to the eyes.  She tells me dried gourds are used to help kids learn swimming. Some of the villagers are roasting fish as a special welcome to us guests. Blackened and sooty, they are interesting to eat.



*Riyaaz Academy for illustrators is based in Hoshangabad (and Bhopal) - It offers a ten month certification course in Picture book Illustration, the first of its kind in India. Learn about it here