A 22-year-old art student has used cartoons and caricature to spread awareness about Covid-19 in his village in Murshidabad district.

Animesh Mondal, a final-year student of the College of Art and Design, University of Burdwan, returned to his village at the start of the lockdown to find none following any rules.

“I hail from this small village, Bhajarampur Gram, of around 200 households. When I realised that my neighbours had little awareness about Covid-19 and its dangers, I thought of doing something,” said the art student who is specialising to become a sculptor.

Animesh got together with a few childhood friends and got down to work. The idea was to spread awareness about Covid-19 and give lessons in personal hygiene.

“I was carrying some paint. I bought some more and borrowed some from a friend who paints houses. Together, we started creating interesting illustrations on walls to spread awareness about the virus,' Animesh said.

Animesh uses popular cartoon characters to teach neighbours social distancing

The artist used Mickey Mouse and some of his own creations to tell people to stay indoors. “In my village, people were not even washing hands regularly. Only a few had sanitisers or wore masks. Social distancing was an unheard of concept to them. People were crowding shops and bazaars instead of maintaining social distance,”said Animesh, whose wall art and caricatures spoke about all that and more.

“We also highlighted how children and senior citizens should be particularly careful as they are the most vulnerable,' said the artist, who was helped by two friends.

Animesh and his friends initially targetted walls in public places.

“Villagers were not keen on letting us paint on the boundary walls of their houses. But after seeing some illustrations some of them invited me to draw on their walls too,” Animesh said.

The visuals have prompted many to change habits.

“They lacked the awareness but I was able to get them to be more cautious through art,” said the student.