School of Hope principal and students with their collection of diyas in Jamshedpur on Tuesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Special children of Jamshedpur have gone arty to add sparkle to the festival of lights.

About 40-odd students of School of Hope are replicating warli paintings — small motifs that are popular among the Warli tribe living on Maharashtra-Gujarat border — on diyas and plates.

For the cradle, which works with mentally and physically challenged children, experimenting with this new art form was quite a brave choice, as it requires thorough concentration and patience.

To begin with, the students are only using white colour on earthen diyas this time. As many as 15,000 diyas are being designed, which itself is an achievement.

“We have procured the raw materials from Calcutta and children are painting on them. But the entire credit goes to Surekha ma’am (Surekha Nerurkar, a social worker and art buff), who suggested us to experiment and add something new to the diyas. Warli paintings are generally found on saris or walls. A couple of students have picked it up really well,” said Shyamala Raju, principal of School of Hope.

The youngsters have been divided into four levels based on their ability — both mental and physical — and expertise. For instance, those who are new to the craft are at level one, while experienced hands are at level four.

The trainers have also taught a few students how to make rangoli-like designs on bigger candles. With years of practice and art lessons, four students in the age group of 20 have mastered the art so well that they at times help their juniors.

“Initially, they used to only colour the diyas. But, now they can draw different rangoli designs with utmost perfection. All the four students — Rani Lohar, Ganga Bai, Rakesh Bag and Randhir Kumar Singh — are promising artists,” said Kiran Kumari, a trainer at the cradle that has been selling ordinary diyas for the past decade and designer ones for six years.

Apart from warli diyas, rangoli diyas, normal diyas as well as wax-filled ones are also being churned out by the cradle. Corporate houses like Tata Steel and academic institutions such as XLRI form the clientele. The products are sold for a very nominal price, ranging from Rs 3 to Rs 150.

Once sales get over, the school deducts the material cost and gives away a certain amount of the profit to the deserving students.

Special students are paid once a year for all kinds of work, which makes the sum substantial.