Sumit Dutta of city, recipient of the prestigious Bal Shree award in the creative art category for his extraordinary talent in Sculpture, was felicitated at the Jharkhand State Bal Bhavan (JSBB) for his achievement.

The national Bal Shree honour is an initiative of National Bal Bhavan, New Delhi to identify the creative potential of children and motivate them to pursue and enhance creativity. It is awarded to children between the ages of 9-16 years.

Sumit Datta, who was always good in arts started to develop interest towards sculpturing at the age of eight said, “I was always interested in arts but it was only when I turned eight that I discovered the art of sculpture and was extremely fascinated by it. I used to go and observe the potters for hours during Durga puja and try to learn through examining their work.”

As many as 80 students were selected from all over India for the national level. There were around 20 participants in the creative art category, out of which Sumit Dutta emerged victorious

Before qualifying for the national level, the participants had to go through two levels: District and State. Speaking about his experience, Sumit said, “The district level was very challenging. We were given a particular topic and had to produce a sculpture based on the topic given within a time frame.” Working within a stipulated time is the most challenging aspect of the competition he added.

The piece that helped him win the national title was the portrayal of Ranchi city and its numerous waterfalls. Sumit said, “The final topic given to us was ‘mountain climbing’, at first it was difficult for me to come up with an idea but then ‘Ranchi the city of waterfalls’ is what intrigued me and I made the final sculpture around that particular idea.”

It was in his second try that he received the national title.

After not succeeding the first time, Sumit visited Ghurni in Krishnanagar that played a very important role in helping him ace the national competition. It was a great learning experience and helped him in realizing his mistakes, “I am very thankful to my brother for taking me to Ghurni as I learnt a lot during my stay there. The people there are very skilled and through thorough observation of their work and techniques, I was able to work on my mistakes and better my work” said Dutta.

He has received three other national awards for art but it was the field of sculpture that he received the biggest and the most prestigious award. Despite being good in other forms of art, he focused more on sculpture because it is more challenging

The members of the cultural team that were present during the occasion were Haren Thakur, Mrinalini Akhauri, Rakesh Raman and G.V.S.R Prasad who also felicitated the awardee with a certificate and a memento.

They also talked about the importance of creativity in one’s life and motivated more students to come forward and participate.