ABSTRACT
As a child, Meena Mani was exposed to arts and crafts by her parents. Her father was an electrical and mechanical engineer and also had the gift of drawing. She was surrounded by his largerthan-life drawings on the walls of their home. Her parents took Mani and her siblings to many art exhibitions and tried to introduce them to the charms of art from an early age. She herself was involved in many hands-on activities, such as making paper flowers or decorating/making a doll’s house as well as drawing and painting. Her father had a larger-than-life persona and so, when he suddenly passed away, Mani at 13 years of age was at an utter loss. Her mother, a housewife, had led an extremely sheltered life. However, she had great inner strength, and the family soon came to terms with the loss and young Mani became the ‘son’ of the family, shouldering many responsibilities at an early age. Not only that, Mani was also eager to start earning as soon as possible because of financial challenges. Meena Mirchandani got married to Moti Mani, an importer and seller of books, in 1976 but lost him to cancer within a short span of two years.
