Bhubaneswar, May 29: Odia artist Sukant Panigrahy, known for his Bollywood film set designs, has now caught the attention of people from across the world with his green initiative at Matheran, a hill station in Maharashtra.

The Matheran Green Festival is now known as India's first forest festival, where a team of volunteers from all over the globe, teamed up with local people, finds creative solutions for environmental problems.

Art director Sukant, known for his work in Chak De India, Dev D, Ek Tha Tiger, Ghanchakkar and so on, together with his volunteer friends planned events for a week starting May 21 to ensure a green life for the local people and preserve the environment at Matheran. But now, these events have become a part of life for the people of the hill station.

"We adopted permaculture or permanent agriculture, which involves adapting one's lifestyle to a natural way of life. A huge dump yard at the Matheran market has now been reduced and the heaps of discarded plastic bottles, liquor glass bottles and piles of polythene and cardboard bags are being used for art installations for beautification of the town," said Sukant, whose art made of waste is famous from the Kalaghoda festival and events in Puri earlier where he showcased Kapala - a skull made of unique ideas out of e-waste or other discarded items.

Permaculture expert Naveen Kumar and volunteers from across borders, as well as the local people and the municipality, joined hands and cleaned out the garbage and planted seeds of lentils and other plants to turn the dump yard into a garden.

Apart from cleaning the town, a lot of activities to empower the local community, especially the girls, were done. Faiza, a social activist from Zimbabwe, joined the cause and taught the girls crotchet crafts that they soon put up on sale at the kiosks for tourists. Also, there were dawn sessions such as musical performances and folk songs, workshops as well as screenings of children's films and sessions to create art installations by the volunteers.

"It was an amazing experience. Every volunteer was sincere in making a difference and not there for mere publicity. Groups were dedicatedly busy completing the art installations and other activities. And Sukant sir has been working day and night," said Pallavi Das Mohanty, Odissi dancer and volunteer.

Actors such as Kunal Kapoor also joined in. The event generated great response and Sukant wishes to replicate it in Odisha shortly.