I d e a ( n ) a t i o n wordpress.com. I didn’t really think that my blog would help me reach out to a much larger audience, but I realised that when I started getting views and messages from not only my school, but other schools, other cities and even other countries. My blog further gained fame when I drew a series of illustrations on acid
attack and acid attack victims, a cause which is very dear to my heart. I started my blog in November 2015, and over the course of these few months, I have garnered about 16,000 views from over 125 countries on my blog, this was followed by Huffington Post, Hindustan Times, Buzzfeed and Mashable covering my doodles.
Through my illustrations on acid attack victims, I wanted to make a point that they still have their beauty intact, that they still are amazing, and all of this popularity has only helped the cause, which makes me really happy. How do you come up with an illustration? Is there a process? The process begins when an issue starts to concern me. I then, start reading about it, I collect statistics, read stories, personal accounts, all of which results into a series of illustrations. I try to imbibe numbers and statistics in my doodles, because that’s what catches the eye and makes people aware of the staggering number of people that the particular issue affects. Acid attack is one issue that constantly keeps pulling me back towards it. For the Google science fair, I tried to device a medicine that would help the acid attack victims to heal their scars, but I failed there, so I came back to what I know best, drawing. I read a lot of accounts of acid attack survivors and therefore, I came up with my acid attack series of illustrations, which is very close to my heart. Was there a defining moment that turned you into an ‘Artivist’? There wasn’t a particular defining moment but the acknowledgement of the fact that art can break cultural and linguistic barriers. Since art is open to interpretation, one does not need any prior knowledge or experience to feel what a particular artwork is trying to tell you and this makes art a powerful means to bring about change. Secondly, living in Delhi, one gets to hear about rape cases and acid attacks, almost every other day, and so I decided to club my art with activism and try to bring about a change. However, a few incidents do motivate me, for instance, in class 5, I was teased by the name of ‘Kaali mata’, just because I have a dusky complexion, and so I associated myself with an organisa-
SCHOOLLIVE
Volume 2 | Issue 10 | August 2016 | 21