Visual artist and social activist Anjali Chandrashekar (17) is back in Chennai after attending the five-day summit (January 26-30) of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the annual meeting of world leaders in business, politics and academics held in Davos, Switzerland. Anjali was one of five representatives selected by the British Council from among 60 youth worldwide to represent the council’s Global Changemaker programme at WEF 2011, and the youngest ever to receive the honour. She was chosen after a challenging and intensive selection process in London where she attended the Global Youth Summit last November.
Describing her experience, Anjali says that participation in this high-profile WEF 2011 convocation, which attracted over 2,500 political, business and NGO leaders from 90 countries including philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, former US President Bill Clinton and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was educative and enriching. “I was assigned an important role as speaker and panelist in some sessions. At an Ideas Lab session I presented my project Picture It, a youth-led photo-journalism campaign to propagate social causes,” says Anjali, a class XII commerce student of the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, Chennai.
The younger of two children of electrical engineer B.V. Chandrashekar and homemaker Anuradha, apart from the causes she’s dedicated to, Anjali is also an accomplished visual artist who took to painting at age four. As her artistic skills developed, she was inspired by her grandmother who runs a charitable trust for children with multiple disabilities to take up art as activism. “Spending time with disabled children prompted me to use art as an advocacy medium to heighten awareness of social and environ-mental issues and promote eco-friendly lifestyles and practices,” says Anjali, who has been raising funds for health, environment and other humanitarian causes for national and international organi-sations by donating her paintings.
Her exceptional talent and canvases inspired by nature and people have won her 60 international, 18 national, 16 state and 40 other awards. Among them: the National Child Award for exceptional achievement from the government of India (2005) and the National Youth Award for social service (2006-2007).
“After school, I plan to pursue fine arts and design. But the focus will always be on using my skills to address social injustices, bring cheer into the lives of people and make the world a better place,” she says.
Wind beneath your wings!
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)
Sanil Shetty
“2010 is the best year in my playing career to date,” says Sanil Shetty (22), India’s fifth-ranked table tennis player. Sanil’s euphoria is understandable because after a lean patch, in the recently concluded year he won the doubles title at the South Asian Games held in Dhaka in January, attained his highest (youth category) world ranking (92) in March, played for the Ind-ian team that made the quarter-finals of the Asian Games held in Guangzhou, China in November and finished as singles runner-up in the prestigious All India Inter-Institutional Table Tennis tournament held at Ajmer, representing his employer Air India, where he works as a customer service supervisor in the cargo section.
However Sanil rates winning the US Open (under-21) Singles Table Tennis title at Michigan in July as his most memorable triumph of 2010. “I had a fantastic run there defeating several fancied players along the way,” he recalls. “But my moment of triumph was when I won the singles finals.”
Supported by his father Shankar Shetty, a former IDBI Bank officer and mother Prema, Sanil’s interest in table tennis was sparked more than a decade ago when his brother Sachin, a former table tennis player-turned-coach, brought home the winners trophy in a local tournament. “The trophy and accolades Sachin won hugely inspired me,” says Sanil, a final year B.Com student of Mumbai’s Khalsa College.
The rest is history in the making. Between 2002 and 2005, he started making waves in the junior table tennis circuit. In his first major domestic tournament he was crowned the sub-junior national champion (under-14 category) at Sirsa, Haryana.
A year later, he won his first international medal, a silver, while representing Asia in the Cadet Challenge Championships held in Portugal. Two years later in 2005, he was the junior national singles (under-17) champion.
Coached for the past 12 years by Deepak Mani, the head table tennis coach at the YMCA’s Andheri (West) centre and spurred by his supportive family, Sanil is currently gearing up for his final exams in March, before return-ing to the national table tennis circuit.
“Besides playing in major domestic and international tournaments, I intend to train in Sweden under former world doubles champion Peter Karlsson for at least two months,” enthuses Sanil, hoping this stint will make a huge difference to his all-round game.
Way to go, bro!
Rajesh Kulkarni (Mumbai)