The French Artist Edgar Degas once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” By this measure, Artist Nandan Pillai is a true artist of the modern age. A remarkably versatile artist, Nandan Pillai's ability to visualize critical facets of modern society by means of his meaningful imagery, forces all concerned individuals to confront the serious issues raised by this modern seer through his artistic creations.

Born in Thrissur (Kerala, India), Artist Nandan Pillai's innate artistic ability initially led him into the field of advertising where his contemporary skills and creativity quickly proved to be very much in demand. However the lure of commercial advertising soon palled, and he was drawn to other fields of creative endeavour. Developments in digital imaging technology enabled Artist Nandan Pillai to realize, very early on, that the fields of Art and Technology could be used to set up global platforms for individual self-expression and interpersonal communication. This led to several Internet-based projects seeking to build purposeful virtual communities on the worldwide web. Thus was born in the year 2000, www.orgpeople.com, India's first online art club for school students, which soon grew into the world's largest collection of children's art on the world wide web, a position it holds to this day. Interestingly, www.orgpeople.com, set up in the year 2000, is a striking example of an early virtual community, set up much prior to the now-popular Orkut (launched January 2004) and Facebook communities (estd February 2004)

In order to encourage a love for nature among school students, Artist Nandan Pillai has developed a unique art activity in schools; one that involves using nature's materials such as clay, flowers and leaves as art materials. His “Natural Art Workshops” for school students have been assessed by Artist C N Karunakaran, Chairman of the Kerala Lalitkala Akademi, and a wellknown artist in his own right, as serving to foster a love of art and nature among school children. These workshops have also evoked considerable interest among art teachers and educationalists alike for facilitating a meaningful connect between art and technology in the mind of students.

From the year 2001 onwards, Artist Nandan Pillai has been closely associated with the community outreach activities of public authorities in Kerala, Karnataka and elsewhere. One direct impact of his creative contribution to community policing has been the adoption of Janamaithri Suraksha project as the flagship programme of Kerala Police, the first such programme in India. Other successful media products from Artist Nandan Pillai's studio include Pappu Zebra the Road Sense Zebra, the popular road safety mascot (adopted by Police departments of Kerala, Orissa & Rajasthan for their respective road safety campaigns), Uncle Dash and Baby Pom (created for the fire safety awareness campaign of Karnataka Fire & Emergency Services Department), Student Police Cadet Sharan (created for the prestigious Student Police Cadet programme of Kerala Police), Kadalunni (created for the Coastal Security programme of Kerala Police), and a whole lot of others.

Other issues that stimulate the creative juices of this multi-talented creative genius are: the global environmental crisis, the importance of healthy living for the modern-day individual, and the need to ensure stress-free education for children.

The world over, there is growing community demand for improvement in governance systems, with particular emphasis on delivery of government services to citizens. As communities and their governments strive to cope with increasing instances of social disorder, it is slowly being realized that the key to better societies lies in facilitating meaningful citizen participation in governance matters that directly affect them. Seen in t his light, Road safety is one issue that could see immediate improvement when approached from a perspective of community involvement.

The Kerala Police Traffic Wing came into existence at the instance of Sri Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Hon. Home Minister, Kerala, at a time when serious concern was being raised about the increasing number of road accidents in Kerala. In support of the efforts to evolve a safer road use culture in Kerala, the renowned Artist Nandan Pillai created an endearing baby Zebra, named "Pappu" by Sri Jacob Punnoose IPS, Hon DGP, Kerala, to act as the official road safety mascot for the Kerala Traffic Police. We are extremely happy to bring out this delightful picture book of Pappu Zebra Stories & Rhymes authored and beautifully illustrated by Artist Nandan Pillai himself.

In this context, the words of Sri Jacob Punnoose are particularly noteworthy: "Throughout my long service career, I have never seen a remarkably effective book about road safety. The book communicates the essential concepts of road safety in a very clear and concise manner. I had been searching for such a book for a very long time, and I am happy to recommend it for community-wide dissemination." We are inspired by this assessment of our book by the architect of community policing in Kerala himself!

OrgPEOPLE is proud of our close association with the Kerala Police in such community-focused projects. In this road safety campaign, we are thankful for the support and guidance by Dr B Sandhya IPS, head of Kerala Police Traffic Wing. We are equally grateful to State Bank of India, Sri Arun Balakrishnan, Chairman, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., and Dr Amarnath Ananthanarayanan, CEO, Bharti-AXA General Insurance Ltd. for their support to this programme that seeks to create safer roads for road users in Kerala.