The Vanishing Green

If you ask me what colour defines Kerala — the small, lush state I call home — I would say, without hesitation: green. But Kerala is not just one green. It is many — from the subtle tones of sap green and terre verte to the brilliance of emerald and the depth of viridian. Each region, each landscape, has its own shade, its own breath.

Kerala’s identity has always been rooted in its reverence for nature — a culture that considers the Earth a mother and treats her with devotion. For generations, people lived by a simple, sacred principle: no tree should be felled without planting another in its place. This collective responsibility kept our land fertile, our hills alive, and our rivers flowing.

But in recent times, this delicate balance has been shattered. The greed of a few has begun to erase the legacy of many. Brutal deforestation and unchecked mechanization have turned our green hills into barren red scars. The rivers have withered into thin lines. Pollution hangs heavy in the air. Even the protective veil of the ozone has been pierced.

This vanishing green — this loss — is the anguish I carry and the story I attempt to tell through my art.

At the heart of my recent work is the endangered Hornbill, the state bird of Kerala. Legend has it that the hornbill drinks rainwater, lifting its beak to the sky during monsoons to catch the falling drops. But what happens when the rain no longer comes? The hornbill, like so many other species in the Western Ghats, faces extinction — not because of nature, but because of what we’ve done to it.

Once thriving in the cool, green canopies of the Ghats, these birds are now losing their homes to climate change and habitat destruction. Their quiet disappearance is symbolic of a larger ecological crisis — one that compels us to act, or at the very least, to remember.

My painting is an expression of this grief and a call to awareness. It is both a tribute to what we have and a lament for what we are losing. Behind every brushstroke lies a question: How long will the green last?

This is not just the theme of my painting — it is its urgency, its politics, and its plea.