Meghiben is an accomplished narrative artist. She illustrated one of the UN millennia goals for a UNDP Delhi project in 2007, and created one of the prototypes for the UNESCO Seal of Excellence award in 2008.
In 2003 she illustrated the story of her life. In 2009, she revised the work and submitted it for the President’s national award competition. The text for the piece follows.
"For several years I thought about making a piece which tells the story of my life. This piece covers my childhood, my village, people and the agriculture which I remember.
The story starts in the lower left. This is the village of my birth, Ratnal, about 25 KM from Bhuj. We were two sisters and always playing at the evening time. I remember the cowshed in my village – you can see it in the lower left corner. Above, I showed the train track that passes by our village and the tea stalls in the village square.
The most vivid memory from my childhood is of the ...
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Meghiben is an accomplished narrative artist. She illustrated one of the UN millennia goals for a UNDP Delhi project in 2007, and created one of the prototypes for the UNESCO Seal of Excellence award in 2008.
In 2003 she illustrated the story of her life. In 2009, she revised the work and submitted it for the President’s national award competition. The text for the piece follows.
"For several years I thought about making a piece which tells the story of my life. This piece covers my childhood, my village, people and the agriculture which I remember.
The story starts in the lower left. This is the village of my birth, Ratnal, about 25 KM from Bhuj. We were two sisters and always playing at the evening time. I remember the cowshed in my village – you can see it in the lower left corner. Above, I showed the train track that passes by our village and the tea stalls in the village square.
The most vivid memory from my childhood is of the big earthquake in 1956. I was 10 years old. I remember it was night time, around 9 PM when we were playing outside our house. Suddenly something was happening and everything started to collapse. You can see our house with part of the roof falling off. All of us children were very scared and our mother asked all of us to stay together. Most of the houses collapsed. People didn’t have shelter, so we started to live in temporary shelters outside the village. It was a very sad situation, especially because it was during the monsoon. I remember packets of biscuits being distributed afterwards as part of the relief package.
A few days later, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru came to our village. He met villagers and heard their problems and difficulties and appealed to the villagers to show courage at the time of disaster. He was ready to offer help as early as possible from the government. I remember I was one of the girls in a group who welcomed the Prime Minister when he came on stage to address the villagers. A few months later, the situation was in control. People forgot the fear of earthquakes and they became busy in day to day activities. Since it was monsoon season, people started to go to the fields, because our agriculture depends on rain water.
I also remember my school days. I was so excited when I entered school, but I never thought I would have to leave in a few days. My mother was a widow, so she asked me to help her in household and agriculture work instead of going to school. At that time parents were not interested in sending their children to school. There was a pond in our village, which was the only source of water. It filled with water only during the monsoon. When there was poor rainfall, we faced a lot of difficulties for drinking water. I remember we walked 5 to 10 kms to fetch water. The pond was for the animals and especially for wild animals. I liked the water harvesting system used by the local people. The people who had farms near the hills made small ponds near their farms, so all the rain water came into the farm ponds. Later they could use it for agriculture.
As time went on, new technology came. I remember we ran to see the new electric train, the first time it came. Earlier I had seen coal trains but this was new and exciting to see. I had never heard about electricity and we were surprised when we saw some fans and tube lights inside the train. As our village was on the main highway, some cars and taxis used to pass in the day time. They would stop to drink tea on the road side. Whenever we heard taxis and cars, we ran towards the main road to see them. These days when I see how technology changes, I could never have imagined it would change so fast. These are my childhood memories, which I depicted to recall my village, the villagers then, my childhood, my family, and the life styles and economic situations of that time. I believe we should remember all of the struggles we faced in our life. It will also be good for the new generation to know about my childhood and my life, especially my own grand children, who ask for stories from their grandmother."
In July 2010 Meghben traveled to the USA to participate in the Santa Fe Folk Art Market. After attending the two day event, she taught narrative applique in workshop in six locations across the USA over a month. Of course, Meghiben then illustrated her experiences in her applique work.....
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