Shubh Mangal Savdhan actress Anshul Chauhan gets Noida kids to combine studio shots with doodles

She is a Noida girl who is an actress, loves doodling and wants to put her imagination and craft to use. Anshul Chauhan, alumna of Kirori Mal College (KMC), who played the role of Bhumi Pednekar's best friend in 'Shubh Mangal Savdhan', is currently based in Mumbai and lives with her college friend Neha Karode from KMC who works as a photographer. Both of them have an inclination towards art and they began a project called Spaces last month, providing a platform to underprivileged kids to use their imagination in an interesting way using art.

Rohan Thapa's imagination adds some fire to this photo

Anshul elaborates, "We wanted to work on a project using art as a medium. We did not know what to do with our craft. We live in Mumbai, and there is a slum area in front of our apartments. We see those kids every day and they see us travelling in luxury cars but we have never exchanged words. Initially, we thought of doing a photoshoot in Mumbai and then ask these slum kids to create something from our photos. But I had to return to Delhi for a personal visit and we had already done a shoot in Mumbai. We did not want the project to suffer so I contacted kids at a school in Noida. The school belongs to one of my relatives and the students aren't from a very privileged background. When I met them on the first day for a drawing workshop, they were quite shy. They couldn't draw anything properly. When I met them the second time, I showed them pictures from my shoot and asked them to draw something after looking at the pictures. I was surprised to see the results."

She adds that there many kids who had attended the workshop but she narrowed down to six who were really good. "These six kids surprised me with their creativity. After they gave their drawings to us, my roommate edited the photos and added some effects, which led to the final product," she says.

Ankush Kumar, a Class VI student who has worked on the project with Anshul, says, "I want to become a district magistrate; I did this for fun. It was interesting to try something new."

Kunal Sharma, a polite and shy kid, transformed this photo of Anshul with his own imagination, which seems to have been inspired by the Statue of Liberty

Kunal Sharma

Arushi Jha, a student of Class VII who wants to either be a model or fashion designer, adds, "The workshop helped us think beyond what we could draw. Didi ne humein bola hum jo banane chahe woh karein. Bahut maza aaya."




Neha, Anshul's friend who has done the photoshoot and editing, says, "This project was about making glamour, which the masses find attractive yet out of reach, more approachable and fun. Giving children plain studio shots as raw material and trying to bring out their experiences into the pictures can help them take it less seriously and make them more confident."

Nidhi Sharma was asked to work on this photo, and the result is on the right

While this only started as an experiment, Anshul says she would like to showcase the drawings at a platform. "I would certainly like to work with the underprivileged kids more. Also, I would like to organize this at a bigger platform."