Students take part in the painting competition at Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, Aug. 11: Students took part in a painting competition organised by the Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation on its premises today. But the children’s excitement ebbed as the topic of the contest — Effects of deforestation and how traffic pollution is hazardous — left many of them stumped.

Around 300 students of classes IV to VIII of different city schools, including Baldwin Academy, Modern School, Aryan Public School, AVN School and Shivam Public School, took part in the competition but most had little idea on how to portray traffic pollution and its effects, deforestation, rainwater harvesting and water conservation through their paintings.

While most of the students managed to portray deforestation and traffic pollution through their sketches, only a handful could show the effects. Sourav Kumar, a Class VII student of Baldwin Academy, did not know how to portray the effects of deforestation. The 12-year-old could only draw a man standing beside trees he had chopped down.

Anshuman Dipanshu (12) showed vehicles belching black smoke in the air but he forgot to show its evil effects. However, a few portrayed the theme in their paintings. Guriya Kumari, a Class V student of Modern School, showed acid rain as the effect of deforestation in her painting, Amlesh Kumar, a Class VII student of the same school, showed dying people as an effect of traffic pollution. He drew number of bodies increasing in a hospital in one figure, while a damaged ozone layer and global warming as a result of traffic pollution in another.

On being asked, Shyam Sharma, a renowned painter and one of the judges, said: “I don’t think the theme was tough. They have been reading about these things. Traffic pollution and effects of deforestation are common topics. The only thing is that the students are not trained in the visual language. They don’t know how to express these things. They describe them in words but find it tough to paint them.”