Chennai, October 12, 2013: The exhibition at the Vellamal Matriculation Higher Secondary School shows a novel way to celebrate the Navratri festival. Not only have the students come out with over a 1,000 golus, all prepared within a week’s time, but they were also made from every imaginable waste material, ranging from egg shells to cycle tyres.

The exhibition is being held under the supervision of the fine arts teachers and art clubs of the school where around 1,108 meticulously crafted pieces are on display.

The students left no stone turned in fashioning the most artistic of pieces using their imagination, crafting over 100 forms of Durga golu. “We had a tough time identifying the goddesses since we wanted to include a large number of them. We have eight forms of Lakshmi, Mahakali, Saraswati and every other form of the goddesses imaginable”, said Y Hemalatha, Principal of the school.

It is not just the goddesses from the pantheon of Hindu deities who found their place in the exhibition put together by the students from the 3rd to 8th classes, but also several gods, in the form of Ganesha or the Shivalingams for instance. What’s more interesting is that the exhibition even made room for a church!

Be it buses or Barbie dolls, myriad things that catch the attention of children were on display, again, all fashioned out of waste materials.

“You do not have to throw away even a stone. You can just paint it and use it as a paper weight”, says Jerry Mathew, a Class 8 student, who won a prize for his golu. He also crafted the church with used ice cream spoons.

Jerry’s philosophy on waste materials seems to resonate across the school, as the students had gone to great lengths to convert waste items into something of value.

One could regard puppets made of old socks, wall-hanger made of soft drink bottle crowns, small handbags cut out of skirts, Barbie dolls crafted from old newspapers, huge peacock figures made of coconut shells and even dolls of gods and goddesses out of PVC pipes and plastic ceiling fan cups.

Broomsticks, buckets, shoe boxes, cartons and even toothbrushes have contributed to the exhibition. “We wanted to emphasise that everything has a value and nothing needs to be thrown out, Hemalatha said.

Source: The New Indian Express, October 12, 2013