Taking traditional route to trace roots

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Chennai: In a bid to expose young minds to the perils of rapid and thoughtless development and the joys of finding sustainable alternatives, V.R. Devika, founder and managing trustee of the Aseema Trust, is organising  ‘Mannvaasanai’, a mela with performances by 10 traditional artistes, stalls for food, ideas for environment-friendly gardens, recycling, use of alternate energy and other aspects of a more down-to-earth lifestyle.
The mela will take place at Valluvar Kottam on January 30 from 10 am to 8 pm. Prior to this, a touring theatre programme will go to different schools from January 21 to 29.
The Aseema Trust works to bridge the gap between education and the traditional arts. “I kept looking at ways of engaging young people in discussion about sustainable living. Ideating with Sangeeta Isvaran, the brilliant young Bharata-natyam artiste who uses her art for scial activism, I decided to commence a touring theatre programme, and take this idea to schools, concluding with a mela,” explains Devika.
Further, she says, “So we went about working with traditional performing artistes like Kannan Kumar, (Therukoothu) Sampathkumar, (Bhara-tanatyam) Lakshmipriya (Poikkal and Silambam)  and many others. Theatre artistes Mohan Raj and Chandra Manimekalai choreographed an open piece on sustainable living as a theme,” she adds.
This apart, what also inspired her to take the show on the road, in a manner of speaking, was the instance of D.V.Sridharan, a sailor with the merchant navy, who bought 17 acres of barren land in 2006. “Now he has converted it into an area for water harvesting, solar power. He and three other volunteers live on what they grow there. The point Return site, as it is called, is a return to one’s roots, to nature, and giving earth something in return for all her precious gifts. This is what inspired me to initiate the Mannvaasanai Mela,” says Devika.
It’s time, she thinks, for children to be open to such alternatives, to come up with innovative, doable ideas of their own and to campaign for their implementation in school.