IT TAKES A VILLAGE

IN A TRADITIONAL, OPEN-TO-SKY COURTYARD HOME IN ANEGUNDI, NEAR HAMPI, HERITAGE CONSERVATIONIST, PAINTER AND FOUNDER OF THE KISHKINDA TRUST, SHAMA PAWAR LIVES AND REVITALIZES CRAFT TRADITIONS BORN FROM THE LAND'S RICH PAST.

- RAJASHREE BALARAM

Shama Pawar's first trip to Hampi was a gift from her father. What the painter didn't know then was that she had walked into a dreamland that would, eventually, not let her walk away. "My father wanted me to see Hampi, and he had insisted that I reach the place at night. He wanted the land to be 'revealed' to me only at sunrise. But I reached just before dawn, so I sat on a hilltop and waited for the sun to come up. The memory of that sunrise, when the massive boulders all around me and the pristine waters of the Tungabhadra were bathed in golden light, shall remain etched in my heart forever. It was that light that changed my life."

Four years later, in 1995, Pawar and her artist husband Adam Shapiro moved permanently into the fortified village of Anegundi near Hampi to build their home. In 1997, she established the Kishkinda Trust, a social development organization that aims to secure the future of village communities through creative economies thriving on locally available resources.