Budding greens turn tree into artefact

The burning issues of plastic menace and proposed Yettinahole drinking water project have found space in the form of artefacts at the two-day Kudla Kala Mela that began on Saturday.

Three youngsters have taken artistic route to create awareness against the non-degradable waste with efforts being made to prevent the use of plastic are not yet sufficient. Environmentalist Dinesh Holla, who has been spearheading the cause with Netravathi Ulisi Horata Samithi, has spared no words in taking on the high and mighty for planning to divert the river, the main source of drinking water for Mangalkuru, in the name of Yettinahole project.

Installation art
Syed Zaheed, Shiva Charan and Arshiya have turned a natural tree into an artefact with plastic carry bags for their installation art titled ‘Future Tree’.  Zaheed and Charan are the students of St Aloysius School at Urwa and Ashriya studies at Victoria Girls High School.

The art work is a spectre of the future when ‘the tree provides plastic life, because you know the reason’ as written on the board hanging from the tree, Zaheed told Deccan Herald. It’s the lesson he has learnt at home which inspired him to create awareness against plastic.

Earlier, he, with his artist father Syed Asif Ali, took a stroll in the park before identifying the perfect tree. The tree that was later zeroed in on, was a picture perfect, with minimum leaves and height, he added.

Sigh of relief
Zaheed found a perfect help in his equally enthusiastic friend and classmate Shiva Charan and elder sister Arshiya, who together worked on the tree, on the eve of Kala Mela on Friday.

Though they heaved a sigh of relief after turning the tree into an ‘artefect’ with hundreds of plastic carry bags in different colours stuffed with waste paper, Arshiya could not sleep at night as she was edgy over possibility of rain. She was a happy lot when the day passed without downpour and it was palpable on her face as she with two others was earnestly explaining the every other visitors about the ‘Future Tree’.

Bowled over by the budding green lovers work, a couple --- Matty Printo and Kishore --- instantly penned a poem on the opinion book. It reads as follows - I met three little artists! creative and sensitive! They saw a future full of plastics! Scary! Scary! Scary!
Before summing up, the duo also commended the three for their concept and for using the vacation (summer) brilliantly.

Focus on Yettinahole
Dinesh Holla has also turned a tree into an artefact that greets the visitors at the entrance. However, what stands out the most is his paintings on three huge canvases where he has minced no words in placing hard truths before the people. He has unequivocally blamed all the three major political parties; Congress, BJP and Janata Dal (Secular), besides depicting the grim picture in the coast with fast eroding netravati river. An empty pot with sand and pebbles on the surface says it all.

Similarly, another artist Sneha Naronha has decorated a tree outside the park with water bottles. And, you may know it why.