Shrikant Ingalhalikar features rare bird Emerald Dove in the form of giant Paddy Art

Pune, September 21, 2018 : City based amateur botanist Shrikant Ingalhalikar who is also known as a ‘Paddy Art’ artist, an ancient art of Japan to create giant pictures in the rice fields, has featured a rare bird Emerald Dove this year in the form of a rice field creation. This ‘live’ painting can be seen on Ingalhalikar’s own rise field at Gorhe Budruk on Sinhagad Road near Pune.

This is the third consecutive year for Ingalhalikar to create beautiful eye-catching shapes in his rice field by planting seedlings of colored rice crop in a very systematic pattern. In the first year (2016) he had created paddy art of Lord Ganesh followed by paddy art of a rare animal Black Panther (2017). And this year he has come up with the giant 50×70 feet image of the bird Emerald Dove.

Emerald Dove is found in the shady equatorial forests from peninsular India to south-east Asia and it is honored as a stately bird by the government of Tamil Nadu.This bird can be seen at places like Matheran, Bhimashankar, Mahabaleshwar, Koyna, Amboli and Goa. Preserving the forest habitat is the only way to conserve this rare and shy bird.

Ingalhalikar said, ‘‘The challenging part of this creation was the canvas of 700 sq meters of knee-deep mud. As the art includes the alive medium of rice crop it creates an illusion of giant alive painting with the flow of the wind. The image can be seen in the field till December. In the future, I want to present rare faunaelements of Sahyadri forests. The Malabar Gliding Frog and The Black Eagle images are earmarked for coming years.’’

Inakadate village in Aomori district of north Japan has been a traditional rice growers’ heritage. They plant rice with their hands and do not use modern machinery. Few years back the peasants of Inakadate found out that paddy growing tradition of their village had completed 2000 years. To celebrate this occasion rice growers of Inakadate joined hands and invented the innovative ‘Tambo Ata’ or Paddy Art in 1993. Inspired by this innovative concept Ingalhalikar has started this similar idea in India.