By IANS
Kolkata/Forbesgunge (Bihar) : Children from the red light areas of Kidderpore in Kolkata and Forbesgunge in Bihar celebrated artist M.F. Husain’s 92nd birthday Monday by holding drawing sessions on the concepts of Freedom.
Artists Biswajit Guha, Sondeep Roy, Susmita Maiti and Abhijit Dutta led 30 children in Kolkata. In Bihar, 50 children from the Nutt community, a community involved in prostitution for generations, participated in the session.
“I saw what the lack of freedom did to my mother. I do not want the same to affect my future. I want to celebrate freedom in real life and in art,” said 14-year-old Uma Das, from the Munshigunge red light area in Kolkata.
“We artists have joined hands with the children to celebrate freedom and pay tribute to M. F. Husain, who taught us how to break boundaries by imagination. Any form of enslavement leads to other forms of enslavement. Our drawing session today is a message to our society,” said Guha.
The session was organised by Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a Kolkata based all-India organization, working to end human trafficking and inter-generational prostitution.
The organisation has developed a creative arts therapy module for children affected prostitutes in the red light areas of Kolkata. This project aims to increase self-esteem through different forms of art.
The drawings will be brought out in an anthology called ‘M.F. Husain and Freedom’ and will be gifted to the artist.