I think that I started drawing the day I learnt to hold a pencil,” says 16-year-old Tanisha Desai, who recently appeared for her class 10 board exams. She doesn’t speak of art as a hobbyist. She speaks of it in tangible terms — through probable phrases and informed inclinations. And so, visual arts will be part of her upcoming International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The very mention of a pottery workshop at a Lower Parel mall excited Tanisha. While she was eager to mould objects on a potter’s wheel, she also wanted to check out the structure of the session. As a doer, someone who has hosted art workshops during the lockdown to raise money for an orphanage, she approaches such experiences holistically. 

The teenager recalls, “Once initiated into the process, I started enjoying the action of kneading and taming the dough with bare fingers. It has a calming effect.” Tanisha adds that the absence of a potter’s wheel took away all restrictions with regard to the shape and size of objects. “I created a heart-shaped dessert plate.”