These children give a special touch to ‘agal vilakkus’

20 children of the Spastics Society of Tiruchi have painted about 6,000 clay lamps

Keeping alive a 15-year-old tradition, 20 children of the Spastics Society of Tiruchi have exhibited their creative skills by painting clay lamps (‘Agal Vilakku’) used widely during the Karthikai Deepam festival.

The children have painted about 6,000 clay lamps in time for the festival, due to be celebrated this year on December 12.

The lamps, bought in August from potters in Kondayampettai, near Thiruvanaikovil, have been individually buffed with sandpaper, coated with three layers of paint, and decorated by children with special needs, who have been enrolled at the Ramalinga Nagar-based institution.

“We offer art and craft as a means to develop the dexterity and hand-eye coordination skills of our students. Decorating lamps is an exercise that is both a physiotherapy and a creative activity,” C. Santhakumar, director, Spastics Society of Tiruchi, told

The Hindu .

Children who are unable to paint, help out with counting and packing the lamps, that are sold at Rs. 5 apiece at the school campus. Each lamp has a sticker saying ‘Hand crafted by the Children of Spastics Society’ at the bottom.

The three months leading up to the Karthikai festival have been set aside for lamp decoration activity for the past 15 years, said Mr. Shanthakumar. “Nearly 90 per cent of the effort in this activity is from our students. The educators help out in the finer details,” he said.

“We choose yellow and red because these are considered to be auspicious colours,” said T. S. Gowri, a craft teacher who has been working on the lamp project and has been associated with the school for the past 25 years. “Each child can decorate up to 100 lamps in a day, but it is a slow process because we have to wait for nearly half a day for the basic layers of paint to dry before we can start on the final designs,” she added. “Some of our children have a natural flair for painting, that we try to encourage.”

This week, the Spastics School children received 76 customised assistive devices from the Chennai-based rehabilitation charity Freedom Trust. This includes furniture like supportive chairs with cutout tables and footrests for children with cerebral palsy, and rehabilitation equipment like wheelchairs, crawlers, gaiters.

All of it has been provided free to the school students.

More details on the clay lamps may be had from the Spastics Society of Tiruchi, Phone: (0431)2772001.