Renowned artist Bose Krishnamachari was recently a special guest at RP Goenka International School (RPGIS, Diamond Harbour Road). He spent a day with the kids, talking art and painting with them. t2 chatted with him about his experience.

What was the experience like?

Extremely good. I am amazed by the school’s infrastructure. It’s fantastic and contemporary. The children celebrated their time, I feel.

Did you have something in mind?

Not really. It was organic. I was feeling that I might be out of space (laughs). With children, being a child, you have come down to that kind of innocence, which means you have to erase a lot of your thinking and set aside a lot of your philosophies and meet them as they are. That’s what I am doing. I don’t know how far I have gone, but I am happy that the children enjoyed it.

Their tutors kept canvases for them. How you inspire children is an important aspect. You can inspire them with colours or your own gestures, how we behave, paint, what we talk about, and life itself. When I talk about my childhood to the present, it’s a long history, but they had interesting questions. I was wearing a chaos kind of colourful shirt and some boys asked me whether it was my painting. It was a gift from another friend who has seen my kind of work and that is one school of thinking, of practice of mine, but it is interesting having these kinds of questions. That is an observation and not a structured question. It shows presence of mind and is an intelligent question.

How does one inculcate art at a young age?

It’s important to have liberal thinking and schooling. That is the future of education, I feel. It is important to know art and culture, without which no institution can sustain itself. Aesthetics can’t be taught but can be imbibed if you have schools like these... liberal thinking and exposure to different verticals of seeing life.

What is the role of art in the times we are living in?

I believe art itself is life and life itself is art. The future of education is art, technology and design, be it a graphic designer or engineer or architect or scientist or medicine. The values of culture is important.

What of the kid in you enjoyed the most?

(Laughs) That’s an interesting question, not to be answered, I think! I was a quiet kid, very shy. You have to become like them and erase your ego. I saw a certain naughtiness in many of the children. I was interested in drawing and loved drawing animal figures. Biology was an interesting subject. There were lots of images of creatures. Even in college projects, more than the language, I used to use the language of art.

What are your favourite things to do when in Calcutta?

I feel there is a kind of cultural consciousness. People are interested in poetry, theatre, films, food, life… I like the old part of Calcutta. I like having tea in the matka. There are some fantastic contemporary galleries. Now you have the (Bengal) Biennale.