The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Bits of paper don’t make the place untidy

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Monday, Feb 11, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Bits of paper don’t make the place untidy

Bageshree S.

Arun Desai has evolved ways of using paper as a tool for learning

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Creative: Arun Desai showing some of his works.

Bangalore: Just about anything can set a child’s imagination soaring. It was no more than scraps of waste paper flying out of a noisy printing press in the neighbourhood that created in Arun Desai a lifetime of interest in the arts of Origami and Kirigami. He is today a full-time practitioner of these arts and teaches them to children for fun and as a tool for learning.

As a boy in Standard V in Hubli, Mr. Desai spent all his time meddling with waste paper in the printing press next to his house. Intrigued by the child’s unusual interest, the owner of the press wanted to know what he did with the stuff. When he discovered that he was creating fascinating shapes out of them, he gave him permission to raid the press any time he wanted and take as much paper.

“That meant many hours of uninterrupted happiness,” recalls Mr. Desai.

But life soon took Mr. Desai away from this fascinating world. He finished his studies and joined the pharma industry, where he stayed put for 13 years. But one fine morning Mr. Desai decided that he was cut out for entirely different things and quit his job. He picked up those forgotten scraps of paper again and launched full time into experimentation.

Now Mr. Desai has a studio in Girinagar where he experiments with paper as the medium. He has evolved ways of using paper to teach the principles of mathematics and science to children. In fact, many schools in Bangalore invite him regularly to teach students science through the fun medium of paper.

“There is hardly any point in just academics if it is not backed by hands-on skill,” says Mr. Desai. The best thing about paper, he says, is that it is “an amusing, inexpensive medium” and a child need not worry about wasting anything. In his collection are dozens of colourful shapes that teach concepts in geometry, skulls with movable jaws and intricately crafted insects with every antenna and leg made to scale.

“Children are creative by instinct, but we insist on making parrots out of them,” says Mr. Desai. “I have seen children looking completely bored suddenly come alive as they start playing with paper.”

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