It is a talk and presentaion by Shri Ravindra Sharma [Guruji] is the founder of Kala Ashram in Adilabad. Kala Ashram works as a 'Living Museum' providing resource services to local folk arts & crafts. He was a scholarship student at the Baroda School of Fine Art.

He is a fount of wisdom on local folk culture, and fascinates us with his stories of the past & present, and his ideas for the future. Shri Ravindra Sharma from an early age was a maverick from his conventional family, spending his time with the 'jeengars' [leather craftsmen & wood carvers], learning their techniques & recipes for mineral paints. He learnt brass wax-wire casting from the Ojhas and metal casting from the Ohtaris, and many other craft techniques. Besides learning craft techniques, Guruji roamed the local forests with parrot catchers, attended the 10 day wedding ceremonies of the Mathurias and has documented local traditions such as the Moharram of the local Muslims.

Guruji taught art at a local tribal school for 10 years, teaching the local Kolam boys to express their inner world through art forms of paint and sculpture

Guruji is an artist, a sculptor trained at the Baroda School of Art. His Brahmin family came from the Punjab a generation before him and settled in Adilabad with a small railway catering business. He was a maverick from his childhood, visiting the low caste Nakashi artisan households to watch wooden figures being carved and painted, after which his grandmother would not allow him into the house until he was purified by having a bucket of water poured over him.