The Root and the Save Sharmila Campaign, Mumbai have enabled an art initiative to support her and extend solidarity to the cause; asking designers, artists, illustrators to create small pieces to be exhibited across the city and then sent to Irom herself.

Below is my postcard. You can download the printable version here. Please do start talking about the AFSPA and its severe affect on the freedoms of people in our troubled states… Thanks!

block printing is such a super special indian craft. the stuff that we see is bright and lively and intricate. old stories from villages slyly sneak out…

we were explained the history and shown the ropes by super  awesome shymala rao, in her house in mulund where she does a whole lot of blockprinting and loves to have people around and let them go wild…

all you need for blockprinting are a set of steady hands, a keen eye, a giant jute layered table and a fair share of blocks. shymala has thousands of intricately designed blocks that she has collected over the years.

at first we diligently following the neat blockprinter border guidelines. but very soon we are we are rotating blocks, overlapping colours, mixing the unmatchable. block printers near-and-far shudder in chorus.

its exhilarating and we’re buzzing. seven sexy singlets and we could have gone on blocking and printing the entire night. we’ll come again shymala super soon. thanks so so much. we highly recommend blockprinting at shymala’s, just bloody call her now and take the next train. her facebook group is here.