In a Bengal village, urban and rural children meet over art

It was a case of urban meeting the rural — more specifically a city meeting the village — on the platform of art when young minds of Bengal came together for a workshop to understand each other better.

On Friday (October 24, 2025), senior students of the La Martiniere for Boys school in Kolkata spent the day in the village of Konedoba in Jhargram district, painting a wall together with the children of this Santhal-dominated settlement, which is slowly turning into an art hub.

They worked together on the sign of infinity: on one half of the horizontal ‘8’ the village students painted their imagination of a city, and on the other half the city students created their impression of a village.

“It was the case of students from an upscale, English-medium world coming to a backward village to work on the same wall with its children. Once they started working together, the differences melted away in no time, it no longer mattered who came from a prosperous background and who came from a humble background,” artist Mrinal Mandal said about the workshop, titled ‘The Traversal’.

“Some 20 boys came from La Martiniere, from Classes 8 to 12. They were joined by nearly 50 children from Konedoba. We had created the infinity sign on a wall, on which the La Martiniere boys created their impression of a village, and the village children created what they thought was a city. We see this as an exchange — this kind of an initiative is very important to wipe out class differences,” the artist said.

Mr. Mandal, a graduate of Kolkata’s Government Arts College, has been living in the villages of Jhargram since 2018, first developing a settlement called Lalbazar into an art hub and now taking the initiative to another village, called Konedoba, seven kilometres away. Both these projects are promoted by a Kolkata-based collective called Chalchitra Academy, of which the artist is a founding member.

“It was a wonderful experience visiting Khwaabgaon [’dream village’, as these two settlements are now called by those bringing about the transformation]. Our students had the opportunity to explore their creativity through painting and artwork under your guidance. The interactive session and the chance to paint on the wall made the visit truly memorable,” a team of teachers that led the students from Kolkata wrote to the Chalchitra Academy.