Adventures of a Salesman in Art World – Part 4

Through this series ‘Adventures of a salesman in art world’, Mr Chandrashekhar Ojha, former DGM Marketing of Camlin continues to share his insightful memories. Throughout his career spread across four decades, he gathered a wealth of insights about the art world through his interactions with artists and art lovers. In this fourth part, he shares his experiences with various schools in his sales territory.

Part 4 ‘School Chalen Hum’

My favourite introductory line till today is, “I have been going to school for the last 38 years and have yet not passed-out.” Since most of the sales used to come from the school segment, the schools used to occupy the maximum space & importance in our working. In Jodhpur and surrounding towns we had schools of all hues and types, as the ‘chain school’ concept had yet not come in currency. I had two special ‘school towns’ also, interestingly on opposite ends of my territory, Mount Abu and Pilani. There were a number of residential English medium schools in both these towns and the economy of the whole town mostly depended upon them, though Mt. Abu also had tourism and Pilani had BITS.

However, most schools in those days were mostly oblivious from the virtues of art in school education. For them it was, at the best, an extra-curricular subject, with no real benefit to the child. And hence, except for the KVs and a very few others, either the schools did not have art teachers or someone just for the sake. And since most of the art teachers were not very competent, they were also not demanding regarding art material. Most of the parents would buy colour pencils and sketch pens for their wards in the beginning of the school session, just to make the child happy. 

Firstly, both these are not good mediums for child art and also for the reason that we were not very strong in these two products, our endeavour was to establish wax crayons and oil pastels instead. The All India Camel Colour Contest (AICCC) was the tool in our hand to enter the school and motivate them to recommend proper art mediums, as both sketch pens and pencils colours were not acceptable. As the art teachers were of no help and the decision was in the hands of the owner / principals only.

One such school was St. Anthony’s, run by Ms. Rose and Mr. Simon, an old school educator couple for whom science, maths and English were the main subjects to be taken care of. When I requested Mr. Simon to take part in the AICCC, he was polite but firmly against it. “I don’t want the school to be part of a publicity program” was his firm decision. I also had no option but to politely thank him and leave. I was sure that AICCC is a benign platform to promote art among children, but arguing with him was not the way to prove it. 

In those days the first level of judging used to be the City Level, which used to take a couple of hours with three educators it used to take a couple of hours. That year we invited two art teachers from different schools and for the third slot we invited Mr. Simon. He refused initially citing his lack of knowledge, but, when we told him about the logic of having one education leader and child psychology, he reluctantly agreed. 

On the appointed day when we started with the briefing and began the process, he became very serious and started inspecting each entry and discussing it with co-panellists. We obeyed his will and conducted the judging process in the most diligent manner. The judging took thrice the time and while leaving Mr. Simon thanked us for our efforts and seriousness and refused to accept the honorarium. “How can I accept payment for the education I received? Rather I must repay you.” However, we bought a book with the amount and gifted it to the school library. 

St. Anthony’s became a regular participant of AICCC from the next year, Mr. Simon appointed an art teacher for the first time and became a good friend thereafter. However, to fight the sketch pen & colour pencils in other schools, I decided to create a “Colour Syllabus” by matching the students’ ability, liking and limitations with the possibilities, features and specialities of the mediums and how one will pave the way for the next. Once the basic idea was ready, I first tried it with one of the best schools in my area, Sophia School, Mt. Abu.

When I told Sr. Bernadine about it, she liked the idea but requested me to give it in writing so that she can put it to the principal for approval. For a Hindi medium student like me, to give something in writing to a convent school was like an Everest trek, but backing out was not an option. So somehow I put it together and went to the best person in my reach for its editing, Mr. Simon. He graciously helped me in making it a proper document and also became the first school to implement. It was adopted by Sophia and a few more schools, though Camlin never endorsed it. 

Sr. Bernadine was very old when I first met her in 1985, but was very energetic and passionate. After Mt. Abu we met a number of times, first in Sophia Ajmer and then in St. Angela Sophia, Jaipur. My last meeting with her was, when she was leading the pre-school section. On AICCC, she raised a very practical issue. The AICCC wants the sheet to be covered fully but the pre-schoolers generally draw a singular object. When I tried to answer this very practical question she was all ears. She was satisfied with my submission and assured me to implement it. 

Similarly, Mr. Simon also remained in touch till he retired. In our last meeting, I told him about a prayer, which my father had taught me during my childhood. He listened to the translation very carefully, appreciated it a lot, noted it down and promised that he would make sure that it would be part of their assembly. While leaving he escorted me till the gate of the school. How courteous! I am truly blessed that I came across such people. 

(To be continued)

Chandrashekhar Ojha