Free-hand painting · INDIA
Free-hand painter from Vadodara living with severe cerebral palsy; 250 free-hand paintings by January 2024; Gujarat Book of Records 2023 entry (painting, craft, puzzle-solving, per Gujarati reporting); donates her monthly disability pension to a special child care institute; received the PMRBP 2024 (Art & Culture).
Age reported two ways in January 2024: 13 in the official award material, 12 in Gujarati newspapers
Gujarat · India
BEHIND THE RESULT
Hetvi Kantibhai Khimsuriya lives in Vadodara, Gujarat, and she paints free-hand — pictures drawn and coloured without stencils or guides. The Government of India’s award material introduces her plainly: an artist living with severe cerebral palsy who, by January 2024, had created 250 free-hand paintings. On 22 January 2024 she received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in the Art and Culture category from President Droupadi Murmu at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
Painting is not her only skill. Gujarati newspapers report that in 2023 her name entered the Gujarat Book of Records for free-hand painting, craft and puzzle-solving, and that her paintings and craft work have been exhibited in around 50 art galleries across India. She studies in Class 8 at a municipal school in Vadodara, and she teaches as well as learns: her YouTube channel, “Special Child Education Activity Hetvi Khimsuriya”, shares art videos that schools across Gujarat have shown to their students, and in 2023 she painted 100 educational pictures and gave them to her own school for children with disabilities. The detail that made ministers take notice is what she does with money of her own: Hetvi receives a monthly disability pension — and she donates it to support other children with disabilities.
If you received a small amount of money every month that was meant just for you, is there a cause you would give part of it away to — and why that one? That is a question from us, not part of her record.
Source-based story · the activities are prompts for readers.
Open the article edition →Free-hand painter from Vadodara living with severe cerebral palsy; 250 free-hand paintings by January 2024; Gujarat Book of Records 2023 entry (painting, craft, puzzle-solving, per Gujarati reporting); donates her monthly disability pension to a special child care institute; received the PMRBP 2024 (Art & Culture).
2024-01-22 · Supporting source ↗
ThePrint · PTI award profiles, 22 January 2024 ↗Wire report
PIB · official PMRBP 2024 awardee list ↗Official award list
Original source ↗
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Reported 13 in January 2024 (official award material)
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Age reported two ways in January 2024: 12 in the official profile, 13 in The Better India
Read the story →Doon International School Baramulla ↗Source photograph · see credit
