Mount Kailash

For Eco Contest [link]

Mount Kailash is considered one of the most holiest places in the world, by many a eastern tradition.

There is a immense amount of symbolism in the painting and hopefully I can explain some of it.

Firstly I will tell you why I made this. Punjab although only 2% of the land mass of India, is the bred basket of the entire Indian sub-continent. But it is facing a tough long term future as glaciers are melting that feed the Punjab aswell as the Indian government diverting rivers to other places in India. Currently the underground water levels are dropping in Punjab, which and eventually there will be a terminal shortage of water. This was stated by a major international organisation (I am not sure if it was the UN, World Bank or International Monetary Fund). This will lead to hundreds of millions of people in India starving as well as a possible mass migration away from the Punjab when it dries up.

My message to people is hopefully together we can help revert, the massive environmental disasters that would occur if countries around the world if nothing is done about global warming. If you do nothing about it (like lobby your government be it your local representitive), you may be partly guilty for the death of millions of human beings (deffinately) as well as the possibily of the deaths of your children or there children because of long term environmental disasters (like not having enough food to feed everyone).

Now I will move onto the symbolism of this piece.

The mountain in the middle is Mount Kailash or Kailasa Parvata which is in Tibet. Some people believe it to be the home of Shiv Ji (the destructive element of God). Historically it is believed that most the major rivers of the Indian sub-continent start here, like the River Indus, Sutlej, Ganges, aswell as the Bhramaputra River. These rivers are responsible for the lives of millions of people in the Indian sub-continent including Punjabi's. If the glaciers of the Himalayas where to completely melt, it would certainly mean the death of millions.

At the bottom you can see blue, which represents the water that flows into the Punjab and is naturally stored in underground water reserviors.

That water is then used, via pumps to water the crop in the Punjab and the crop is represented by the yellow/orange wheat harvest. The wheat is leaning towards Mount Kailash because that is the source of the water which feeds the crop that has grown.

As soon as the glaciers melt and be destroyed, so will the crops that feed hundreds of millions of people.

It is upto you to take action because this kind of thing will happen all around the world.