When an artist brings the environment to centre stage
From theatre productions to films and live compering, Delhi-based artist Shivani Wazir Pasrich has done it all. Ask her how the journey has been from being an artist to an environmentalist, and she says, “Life’s been good to me. Sometimes people ask me ‘When you’re doing an event, you must be doing so much research’... I think, when it comes to the stage, it was my calling — whether it’s theatre or compering events. I don’t think I can ever move away from it. One thing in life is, to not panic about it,” says Pasrich, who is fondly remembered as Madhuri Dixit’s friend in Dil Toh Pagal Hai (1997).
Pasrich says she’s right now in a “wonderful place” that’s like “a haven of babies”. Speaking passionately about the work she’s currently doing for the environment, she says, “I’m using all my experience over the years, to try and enrich lives of young ones at The Study School in Kailash Colony. Whether it’s exposing them to art in a unique way or going to galleries. Between the age of two to six is really when who you are, gets etched. I believe that the beauty of the real world can be shared with them in a communicative way. We took our two-year-olds to an art gallery, and they behaved in the most impeccable fashion!”
Beyond introducing fun things, she is also trying to inculcate environment-friendly habits in children. Since one needs to imbibe the qualities before teaching it to someone, Shivani has rightly started advocating for garbage segregation, and the concept of ‘reuse recycle’.
“It’s important to imbibe at this very young age that old things aren’t chucked, but used. And you can use old things,” she says, adding, “Not having chips, and packed foods where single-use plastic is used, knowing about garbage segregation, knowing that a single-use plastic is a terrible thing, to actually it can help water a tree... things like that. It’s just not books, and speaking, and visuals. It’s actually being interactive with people who have been places. Knowing so many people along the years, I bring people to come and interact with the children,” says Pasrich, who has also introduced a toy bank to reduce the stigma around recycling.
And how does she manage to dabble in so many things together? “People stress so much. For me, I am going to carry on compere events, theatre productions and being at the school seeing how we can all have lots of fun doing things that are meaningful and make a difference,” she says.
I’m using all my experience over the years, to try and enrich lives of young ones... It’s important to imbibe at this very young age that old things aren’t chucked, but used. And you can use old things. SHIVANI WAZIR PASRICH ARTIST