Nothing Goes to waste in Nature or Art

Toy Making Workshop - An experience through Photographs

 “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”  ― Rumi

The Cuckoo Forest school, is one such school in the country which had people from all walks of life come together from across the country as far as Nagaland to help in building the school's first building, 'The Library' block, which is a fully mud construction structure.

The amount of love and energy that was poured in by everyone while building the structure is inexplicable in words. There was a whole lot of manual labor involved in the construction and all of us were amateurs at it with the only thought of kids that this school would accommodate and this love and vibration could be felt throughout the school premises which also kept us and the volunteers going, in constructing the structure.

Since this blog is more to do with our experience during the 'Toy Making Workshop', we will stick to that and we will very soon write another blog on the construction of the library building and the experience attached to it.

Well, some of these volunteers later came back with their friends and families and took them inside the building and showed them with so much happiness and love, the parts of the structure they had helped in building. 

On one such occasion was when Purusothaman from Chennai chanced to visit the school. He is one of the founder members of Vrksa LifeSpace, a platform for meet ups, workshops and training's to Explore, Experience & Embrace minimalistic living through collaborative learning.

It was a weekend and the kids from the village were playing in the school, their favorite hang out spot.. :)  and he upon seeing them came up with an idea of conducting a Toy Making workshop for these kids.

This is when Purusothaman told us about Subid, an IITian who is well known for his 'Ahmisa Toys' , toys that are made out of 'waste materials'.

He holds a Master degree in Industrial and Product Design from IIT, Delhi and he is a disciple of Mr. Arvind Gupta, an environment and human rights activist.

In his own words, “I help kids make simple toys, who are mostly accustomed to use and throw toys. I do not stress on text book education. They will learn a lot when they make it by themselves”

Earlier, we had met his Guru, Mr. Arvind Gupta in Vellore on an occasion much before the work on school had started and those were memories we had cherished . It was destined by nature that the School's first workshop would be started by none other than this own disciple, Mr. Subid.

Mr. Subid is a true master who goes by doing his work silently, changing people's thoughts across the different places. He lets his work talk for him.

A short description on the kind of person he is from our experience - he is someone who is very simple and humble, a quiet guy with no public display of emotions. Someone who loves being with kids and he believes in the fact that learning has no barrier with respect to age/gender et al.

To go by this belief of his, we can cite an incident that happened during the workshop, there was this girl who had made a doll and he said it very openly without any inhibitions that he learnt from her on how to go about it. 

The workshop was a three day affair and on the second day morning, Subid had gotten up early and was seen strolling around the school collecting various waste materials that could be used in making toys.

The same day, two kids, a sister and brother from the village came thronging to the school quite early in all excitement and the little boy who was clad in no clothes, :) came over to Subid with his palms outstretched and handed over the few groundnuts his tiny hands had allowed him to carry from his home.

This showed the love that Subid had earned amongst the kids in just one day with only his work speaking for him... :) :)

We consider this incident as God 's way of giving those groundnuts to Subid through the kid. This whole incident was very eye pleasing to watch and heartwarming.  

On the last day, when he was leaving  after the workshop. Just outside the school compound, he stepped out of his footwear and with a very peaceful smile on his face, he looked up at the sky and said a small prayer.

And when he was about to leave in the car, we gave him a small token of appreciation, a painting that was done by artist, Ghana. He gave it back to us saying, 'let this painting remain here in this big house that is for children'.

These are some memories that will be forever etched in our hearts. We learnt from him not only on how to go about making toys from waste materials but otherwise also...

“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” ― Rumi

     

Subid Ahimsa
facebook.com/subid.ahimsa

For online learning of making toys out of Trash materials, please visit:arvindguptatoys.com/

Vrksa LifeSpace 
facebook.com/VrksaLifespaceEvents

Cuckoo Movement For children

facebook.com/cuckoochildren

Picture Credits : Rajaram Gomathinayagam

A little Insight about Rajaram, The photo documentarian  -  He has been with Cuckoo right from its initial days and has always extended emotional support and has always been one of cuckoo's pillar of strength during our tiring times.

This is his first photo documentation since he bought his camera and maybe or may not be, people outside cuckoo will look at the technicalities of these photographs and would probably overlook the emotions these pictures speaks but for us, these pictures speaks in volume about his care towards humanity, his love towards mankind and his passion for photography and we are able to foresee a bigger life for him out there in the world.