RailEnquiry

Prerana Sengupta dropped into Park Street Metro station on Wednesday afternoon to see if her small contribution to a worthy cause had found pride of place on a subway wall.“There it is!” Prerana said, barely able to conceal her excitement on finding her painting of an emaciated child among the many featured in the Art for Nutrition exhibition.“We saw the announcement about the exhibition in The Telegraph this morning. Her vacation is underway, so we came over,” said mother Jonaki, delighted at her daughter’s sensitive portrayal of the scourge of malnutrition.The exhibition of paintings by students of 154 schools at the Park Street and Esplanade Metro stations is part of the Horlicks Aahar Abhiyan initiative launched by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare in association with the Child in Need Institute (CINI), The Telegraph and Anandabazar Patrika.Like most of the participants, this is the first time Prerana has tackled a serious theme. “My favourite subject is a river or riverside scenery. So this was a challenge,” said the Class VIII student of BDM International School, whose painting shows a malnutrition victim and an underfed stray dog staring at a plateful of food.The Art for Nutrition exhibition, inaugurated at Park Street Metro station by Sunil K. Mehra, general manager (east) of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, and P.B. Murty, general manager of Metro Railway, displays 7,000 paintings selected from over 27,000 that came in.

The paintings cover a range of themes from “mother and child” to “eating right”. According to Kakoli Dey of CINI, involving students in raising awareness about problems like malnutrition was a step towards grooming future leaders.