The Man Who Taught a Village to Draw

Artist BA Reddy's three-decade-long journey at Sanskriti School has turned weekend art lessons into lifelines for countless children

- By MALLIK THATIPALLI

Ramakrishna Kongalla, who spent 15 years at Sanskriti School in a small Andhra village Hyderguda, never really thought he would teach at NIFT Hyderabad one day. Hyderguda is now anything but a village, for the building boom has transformed the area beyond recognition. “If not for Reddy sir, I would have had no design career,” he says.

Similarly, Shekar Shinde, the son of a village cobbler, spent 15 years at Sanskriti and now teaches art at Chirec International, one of Hyderabad’s prestigious schools. “I’m the first in my family to finish post-graduation,” he says. “All my childhood memories happened at this school.”

Both, like many others, passed out from Sanskriti School, a unique experiment by BA Reddy, a cultural and art centre that started in 1992 to educate rural children who dropped out schools either due to lack of access or help their family trade. Known for his evocative figurative style, Reddy’s canvases often draw upon the vast well of Indian epics like the Ramayana, yet he paints these mythological tales with a contemporary sensibility. His belief that art should not remain locked within galleries or the grasp of the privileged has guided his journey. For many children, Sanskriti offered more than art lessons. But perhaps Reddy’s greatest gift was what he refused to do: he never forced his students to imitate him.