Appu apparent

AT AN age when most kids can't even manage a grip on a pencil, this girl held a brush and dabbled with paint. When she was in nursery school, her parents enrolled her in an art school here. And there was no looking back for this first ranker.

A class five student at Nirmala School here, Aparanji Mallela is a bundle of confidence and energy. As visitors went around her exhibition of her paintings, the admiration was clearly displayed in their eyes. From a simple looking painting showing a bunch of fruits that children seemed to prefer at an early age to a fabulous piece showing a stork on the edge of a pond, beautiful was the word for them. One showed a colourfully dressed woman with a pot and there was one of `Chacha' Nehru.

If the exhibit that captured on canvas showing a clown riding a uni-cycle and juggling plantains made people laugh and a mother and child portrait communicated the bond, the illustration of a lonely-looking girl starkly showed a sob story of poverty and uncertainty. Aparanji or Appu, as she is called, is a student of Picasso Coaching Centre that was set up in 1971 by Prof. Mohd. Aliuddin. He was clearly missed by his favourite pupil at her first show. He expired in August last. With a tinge of sadness, she said for some time last year she was unable to put brush to paper.

Cartoon strips inspired her and made her take to painting like fish to water. This apart, she is also a magician with 47 shows to her credit. She wants to be an IAS officer because her dad, an IPS officer said so. Her ambition? She wants to be greater than P.C. Sorcar Junior who has accepted to train her. And guess what? She wants to vanish the great conjurer himself!

By Suresh Krishnamoorthy

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