Padav Fellowships

“Padav (a camp) is a stopover in one’s journey. It is usually a natural place to rest, with water, food, and shade, with people around. It is the space where there are relaxed conversations without prejudice or expectation — co-travellers sharing insights, exchanging tips, and sometimes being guided forward by someone who has walked the same path before.”

The Padav programme is an opportunity for mentors and mentees to connect — living as residents at Kaaya for a short period. It is a departure from conventional mentor-mentee relationships, built around the idea that the right physical space can do as much work as any formal curriculum. Kaaya itself is designed to foster real, experience-based connection in a natural environment, and Padav asks what becomes possible when mentorship happens inside that kind of setting rather than a classroom or office.

Under the programme, a working relationship is established between mentor and mentees that continues beyond the residency itself — sustained afterward through both offline and online contact.

Programme scope

The aim is to offer fellowships to 100 new fellows each year, divided into five cohorts of twelve to twenty. Each year, Kaaya works with five mentors, representing different theme areas — currently arts and performing arts, and handicrafts and artisanal work, since these are the areas where Kaaya can presently offer the most relevant setting and support: a small art and pottery studio, a wood workshop, an amphitheatre, and a small nursery.

The mentor

Someone who has made a notable journey and arrived at a point from which they can look back — and in looking back, recognise others who have only just begun. By stopping, meeting, and sharing something of their own path, the hope is that at least some younger people will be encouraged to keep going.

The mentees (the fellows)

Typically individuals who have already shown some early commitment to a path of their own. Mentors generally define the eligibility for their cohort; there is an open call, and the first shortlist of twelve to twenty fellows is made jointly between the mentor and Kaaya.

The physical space — Padav I

The first residency, where mentor and mentees live together for a week, takes place at Kaaya in Dehradun. The space provides both logistics and a framework within which the mentor-mentee relationship can develop — built into the daily routine, the shared activities, the food, and the living context itself.

The mentor’s space — Padav II

A second residency, roughly a month later, in the mentor’s own studio, home, workshop, or a rented space nearby. A smaller group from each cohort is selected by the mentor and Kaaya for this more intensive exposure, gaining access not just to the mentor’s guidance but to their wider network and opportunities to share independent work.

A note to those who want to support this

If this work resonates and you’d like to help — you can support us in reaching potential mentors and candidates, fund the programme broadly or a specific mentor or cohort, or simply advise us on how to extend its reach. Reach out at jbangani@kaaya.org or santosh@kaaya.org.

About the founding members of the Padav programme

Jagmohan Bangani is a full-time visual artist from Uttarakhand. Raised in the remote Bangaan region, he has travelled widely and now lives and works in Delhi, holding a Master’s in Painting from Winchester School of Art, UK. He is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Fellowship (New York), a Junior Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and a Research Scholarship from Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. His work has been shown in six solo exhibitions and held in collections including the Secretariat of Uttarakhand State, Lalit Kala Akademi, and the Ford Foundation.

Santosh Passi is a development practitioner. Sensing the need for a genuine urban-rural connect programme, he conceptualised Kaaya in 2011. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Forest Management and a Fellow in International Development Policy from Duke University, and a recipient of the Ford Foundation International Fellowship. After years working as a programme and policy evaluation consultant in community development, he chose in 2011 to make Kaaya his full-time work — building it as a social enterprise around which programmes like Padav could take shape.