KAAVI ART IMMORTALISED IN MANN KI BAAT CHILDREN’s BOOK

Goa’s only traditional native painting technique, Kaavi, has been immortalised in a special volume of Amar Chitra Katha — India’s favourite children’s book — prepared by the Union culture ministry as part of the ‘Mann ki Baat’ series. Released last week, the comic book-styled volume will present the fascinating story of Kaavi and its revival to every child in the country.Medium108412802 The rare art form first gained national prominence when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his weekly broadcast of ‘Mann ki Baat’ on December 26, 2021, spoke about efforts to revive the technique.Medium108412803 The ‘hero’ in Kaavi’s saga is young Goan artist, Sagar Naik Mule, whose story helped attract attention towards the art form.Medium108412804 “The Prime Minister touched on 700 topics in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ series, of which 100 were chosen to be featured in special volumes of Amar Chitra Katha. I feel fortunate that Kaavi was chosen among these 100 topics. I was not just the only person from Goa to be featured, but I have also been depicted on the book cover of this volume. It feels like a god-sent moment for Goa’s Kaavi art and the Goan soil,” Mule told TOI.Medium108412805 Kaavi had almost gone extinct, with no new work painted in the last 150 years and with no living practitioners of the art. But researchers and Mule himself have renewed hopes of its revival in recent years. The art involves the use of red, iron-rich soil and lime to decorate walls and ceilings, mainly of places of worship, but not limited to these.Medium108412806 The first effort towards the restoration of Kaavi was taken up by the state government recently at the Shree Saptakoteshwar temple in Naroa. Mule also helped restore Kaavi on the walls of the Shree Maruti Temple belonging to the Deshprabhu family of Pernem. He has since been working on putting a contemporary spin to Kaavi in the hopes reviving it.Medium108412807 Traditionally, Kaavi can be seen on walls, columns and ceilings, while also being used to delineate sacred spaces and niches in temples and homes.Being a technique and not a style of painting, Kaavi was versatile and had the scope to be secular. The patterns were recently discovered under layers of lime wash during restoration of the Chapel of the Convent of Santa Monica, leaving restorers stunned.