At the Sir JJ School of Art, students have abandoned their classrooms since the last five days. Spilling over into the empty spaces of the campus under the peak afternoon sun, occupying the garden patches and muddy pathways, they are engaged in the process of creation. On one end, someone is building an installation of a running tap with handwritten protest notes appearing to “gush out”—give us an answer, where are the teachers, we need a roof to live (they appeal in Marathi). Ahead, at the mouth of the entrance, hundreds of students are seated on a mat, making sketches, and doing stencil art. Those standing are adding brush strokes to the canvas placed on their easels—all painting a young woman, who has volunteered to be the subject of their portrait, as she sits languidly on a stool. They work in silence; no blaring speakers to galvanise the large group of students, or music to keep them engaged and entertained.

Art is how they express themselves. It’s also their language of protest, Santosh Sanjay Parkar, a student of interior design, and student general secretary, tells us. The students have, for the last few days, been protesting for better infrastructure including loom machines and modern tech, and permanent faculty. “It’s the basic right of every student,” they argue.