July 17, 2013: What happened to the elephant that was beheaded to give Lord Ganesh a head? What happened to the head of the child Ganesh that Lord Shiva had struck off in anger? Artist Nandan Pillai pieced the puzzle and created a character called ‘Gajaangan’ — one with an elephant’s body.

In Nandan’s paintings, Gajaangan represents the differently-abled children of this world. Pillai has always painted for children, or of disasters that pained him. He painted a mermaid series after the tsunami of 2004. “I made paintings 25 metres long — after the death of Mother Teresa. It was her life that I drew as a series, in Bengaluru, Kannur, Kozhikode and Ernakulam,“ he says.
 

Even before the time of Orkut and Facebook, Nandan Pillai thought of an idea to connect children through the internet. He founded ‘orgpeople’ back in 2000, with a webpage each for over 10,000 kids who became members. Senior police officials who saw this asked Nandan if they could communicate to the children through ‘orgpeople’. He took police officers to schools for interactive sessions with children. His comic character ‘Pappu’ illustrates the need to follow traffic rules.

“Proceeds from the exhibition, will go to the aid of differently-abled children,” he says.

Source: Asian Age, DT. July 17, 2013.