Confessions of a Live Painting

A picture is worth a thousand words. That's for the one who is looking at it , of course. What about the picture itself? I mean, has anybody ever tried to feel like a picture being looked at by hundreds of strange eyes... plus the fact that you can't call out to them , you can't respond to them, you can't move and , if you're not looking straight ahead, you can't even stare back! Quite a situation , isnt it? I had a certain experience of this variety last week, when I was invited by a class of Art students to be a model for a painting.

The proposition thrilled me a lot at first, and seemed a tad funny when I sat in the model's seat, with about 25 pairs of eyes looking at me with absorbing interest. To be honest, it was quite a royal feeling,those first few moments, to be so worthy of the keenest attention of so many people at once! But as the minutes ticked on, the saying" uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" began gnawing at my feeling of royalty. No, I won't talk about the physical torture of sitting and staring in the distance as if you're deep in thought when all you're thinking is, "God, my back hurts!"

What really got me 'musing' (pun intended) was the growing feeling of my personal space getting more and more cramped by the minute. I mean, there are probing eyes that are silently outlining your eyebrows; someone's trying to perfect the shape of your eyes, a pencil is going over the curve of your lips and someone else is messing up your hairline. Its one of the topmost uncomfortable positions to be in....

Thats when I realised what its like to be a painting - complete strangers keep glancing into your eyes, barging thoughtlessly into your intimate space......sometimes admiring, sometimes inquisitive. And much as you may want to, you can't tell them to buzz off , or stick out your tongue at them!!Actually, the saying got a new meaning for me -- THE PICTURE IS DYING TO SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS!!

Travelling in time

A person once asked me, your interests are so contrasting- reading books and travelling. I wonder, how many people would agree with him? I don’t, for one. They are both the same thing to me. Actually, let me be more lucid about it. As far as I believe, there are two types of travelling…travelling in space and traveling in time. When you travel by land, sea or water, you travel in space. But when you hold a book before you, you are travelling in time. Ok, so now you’re thinking that I’ve been reading too many science fiction novels. I do agree that I’m a big fan of H.G. Wells and I loved reading ‘The time machine.’ But this is not about that kind of time travel. At least, not technically.
Let me explain. When I’m reading a book, I can be where I want to be, when I want to be without moving an inch. It might be a village in the heart of India, like in R. K Narayan’s works; it might be old British society as in a Dickens or Austen novel. So when I’m travelling to a faraway land in a distant century, I do think you’ll agree that it qualifies as time travel. That’s why I would say that my interests are actually completely in sync with each other and with my personality (someone once defined my personality as “freedom and change” – and that’s precisely what travelling gives you, be it in space or time.)
So as I was saying, I love to travel. I’ve been to Egypt, to Arabia, to Dubai, to Afghanistan, to London, to Vatican City, to Paris, to Kerala………. All through books. I’ve met people whose joys and sorrows I’ve lived as my own. I’ve seen the pyramids, travelled through the desert and lived in an oasis with Santiago in The Alchemist , and I’ve sat musing by a river in Kerala with Ammu in The God of Small things. It’s not as if I haven’t travelled in real life – but I know it’ll never be enough for me. My greatest dream is to be able to go on a world tour…..and not just in time!!
But till then,
Planes and ships won’t carry me around,
But words will lift me off the ground.....

Kaziranga National Park

My choice for 7 Natural Wonders of the World. Please vote for it too!!

Its Raining......

I've been writing for a newspaper, and I loved doing that. But somehow it gave me the feeling that I'd forgotten how to write for myself ; never having to consider what the reader would like to know about. I enjoyed my work a lot but missed the feeling of writing just for the sake of writing... Its time I indulged myself again. So, here goes.

Rains in India are a complex phenomena. We love them, we hate them , we pray for them and then we pray for them to stop. I have always loved the sound of raindrops falling on tree leaves in my garden and on the cooler outside my window as I sit at my table and write. There was a time when every rain meant an open air bath for me, but now frolicking in the rain has become a rare occurrence. I guess that's because as we grow older, we seem to do more of the things we should or must do, rather than those we really want to do. But now I'm digressing from what I really set out to write . Yes, those devilish arrows from heaven.

Well, my love for the pattering crystal drops considerably lessened when my backyard flooded over. No, I don't live in Bihar or Orissa or some flood-prone area, I belong to a comfortably well-off middle class family and I have a decently big house. But in my city, like in any other Indian city, drains have a tendency to transform into lakes at the slightest provocation. In fact, about 8 years ago, I even had to wade through one outside my school gates. But thankfully, that has changed in the last few years. However, to come back to my backyard, not only was it flooded with water but also with muck from the drains flowing behind my house. Great. That was till last year. This year, something new happened. My kitchen floor flooded over too, and it gave us all a high blood pressure until the waters subsided. To think that we don't even live in the vicinity of a river changing its course... Imagine what would have happened if we did, was what I used to think. And I had plenty to imagine this year when I saw the images of the massive floods in Bihar. I don't want to talk about how completely soul-wrenching it is. That would be impossible to explain in words. But what I kept feeling the whole time was, would these people still love the rains? I really have no answer for it.

Yesterday night, I was standing in my backyard, feeling the breeze tug at my hair (I love it when it does that) when I felt tiny drops landing on the top of my head. So I did what I hadn't done since a long time; stood there and let the heavens pierce me with silver arrows. I really need to say this : it elated me like nothing else had done in a long time. On the other side of the wall,street children played on the road, making a lot of hullabaloo. A sudden sound made me aware of the water filling up in my backyard again, and bringing the muck along with it. I sighed and remembered my domestic help telling me how every monsoon her shack became like a house built on water....... and I also remembered her children playing out there, despite all that.

I really don't know for sure, but I think despite all the troubles it brings us, we always love the rains in some corner of our heart. What do you think?