Playing with Animals

As a chronicler of village life, Madhvi Parekh turns not to toil as much as to leisure, to play rather than to work—manifestations of a happy childhood in which one was free to run around at will, intermingling with creatures feathered as well as four-legged. Parekh’s gender would not have allowed her to play as freely as the protagonists of her paintings, but she reminisces with affection about a life in which all living beings were as well regarded as inanimate objects. Here, friends gather together to play with animals, giving the work its evocative title.