Jene Hai, the Self-taught Painter and Cartoonist from Arunachal Pradesh who is Making Art Accessible to All

Jene hails from Haider, under Bairijo circle of Upper Subansiri district, Arunachal Pradesh. As a young kid he was quiet intrigued by different designs, the natural flora and fauna of the region. He has fond memories of drawing the shapes of clouds on mud when he was a toddler. 

  It all started since school. Before the morning bell went off he used to sit on the ground, pick up any twig that was lying around and start drawing anything that would come to mind. According to him, coming from a remote village he did not have anyone to look up to, nobody in the village knew that drawing could be a vocation.

    Photo: Jene Hai on the right. 

‘As a young boy, books with lot of pictures were my favourites, and I hated the books which only had text.’, says Jene Hai.

He would often get punished in school, or on many instances his parents would get called for spoiling the text books and notebooks. That was not all; he even drew cartoons of rude teachers on the blackboard. (Let’s give a round of applause to Jene Hai for that, haven’t we all wanted to do that at some point of school.) Yet, he for most part he managed to study well, and be one of the teacher’s favourites. On the nice side, he used to make greeting cards, and gift it to friends without reason.

 Eventually, he started participating in drawing competitions. His parents, family and teachers have always stood by his side. Although, initially he never got awarded in completions, as he grew up and kept practicing he started bagging the first prize. He recalls mostly being away from his parents, living in hostels with eldest sister and brother-in-law. They encouraged him to keep pursuing his passion to paint. Twice they tried to send him to Kolkata to graduate in fine arts, but somehow that plan never materialised. 
He did his middle school from Shillong, and stayed there to do his Bachelor of Arts and (MRD) Master in Rural Development. Later after he moved to Itanagar in 2013, and tried to bag a government job like most people, but he failed. Life had other plans.

He kept on painting and started using social media to share his work. Many of his art works started getting widely shared and he slowly got recognized. There was work lining up for him in the State as well as the region and there was no looking back. The Eastern Sentinel Daily proposed that he work for the newspaper as a cartoonist. Thereon he started focusing on cartoons. His paintings and cartoons stand out from others because he draws inspiration from daily lives, villages and real people, much like the legendary R. K. Laxman’s work. He yearns to go back to his village and live a quiet life there. He loves observing the everyday things, landscapes, and brings them to his painting.

Being a cartoonist and producing a new cartoon every single day is not an easy job. The first challenge is to come up with a new theme every day. The bigger issue is cartoons run the risk of rubbing some people the wrong way or hurt sentiments of a few, which is the last thing any artist wants. The job of a cartoonist is to present the truth in a humorous way. There are times when a cartoon is about a state administration policy, or a take on concerns in the society. He as an artist wants people to take his cartoons positively.  

Among his many accomplishments he has worked with Gona Niji, a fashion designer from the State, and acted in an Arunachali Hindi movie-J2 (by Mr.Tapen Natam). He has been felicitated for his artwork by IGP Robin Hibu (Nodal officer, North East Delhi police), and has been interviewed by the All India Radio Itanagar.

Change through Art

He has worked in orphanages to teach free art classes to the orphans, and women victims. He has worked as an illustrator in sex-education books with the Government of Arunachal Pradesh. He has made cartoons for women help line Itanagar. Jene has advocated for women empowerment through his art. He illustrated on theme of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao for the Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Arunachal Pradesh.

He plans to teach the art of sketching to kids through workshops. 

He is currently exploring ways to popularize sketching in the region so that more people can understand that art needs more takers. Currently as the General Secretary of Arunachal Akademi of Fine Arts (AAFA) he is conducting many art exhibitions and encouraging everyone, especially the school children to attend these sessions.