Uma Krishnaswamy is fascinated by folk and other forms of art from India and around the world. Her illustrations for Tulika's And Land was Born, It’s Only a Story and Dancing on Walls are imaginative innovations that draw from traditional tribal aesthetics and art. Uma teaches Visual Studies and illustration at two Chennai city colleges.
A sapling becomes a shady tree as a dusty path is beaten into a busy street. This lyrically told story and pictures that blend folk styles, show how development and conservation can coexist.
How did the Warlis first begin to paint their walls with shining, white images? A whimsical story that imagines how the art may have been born.
An ant's curiosity leads to adventure in this story of repetition and cumulative images, told like a flowing river. The illustrations are adapted from Warli art.
When the people beg a lazy god to find land, he goes to the astrologer for help. A zany story from the Bhilalas of central India, with pictures based on original mud-wall paintings.
A resource book for anybody interested in sharing stories inside and outside the classroom. A comprehensive, compelling and culturally rich introduction to a diverse region.
From up high, where the Himalayas seem to touch the sky, Ganga tumbles down clean and clear. Giving life to King Sagara’s 60,000 sons as well as to everything in her path, she is as special to mythology as to the people who live by her. Why then do we continue to dirty her waters?
This river jumps out of a horse’s mouth all set for adventure! He pierces through forbidding mountain ranges and races down from Tibet through northeastern India. Changing form and name as he rushes along, the mighty ‘son of Brahma’ connects an incredible mix of people, places and ways of life.
Much before people lived together along the Indus or Ganga, the Narmada valley was humming with activity – it was, and still is, home to many tribes of the ‘earliest settlers’, the Adivasis. Now, big dams across the playful, unfettered river threaten to disturb the lives of those around it.
Trained to be king from the time he was 12 years old, Tipu was a bold and fearless boy – no wonder, then, that he chose the tiger for a mascot! Here’s a tale of how this Tiger of Mysuru challenged the growing might of the British in the late 18th century.