A Pretty Neat Place

  A Painting and a Story # 20

With her silver anklet jingling, and her pigtails flying Meenu (short for Meenakshi) runs to the strong bark of the tall tree with red flowers. She does not know the name of these large red flowers but this tree is her friend. Hoo Ffoo kaka walks leisurely with her parents. 'Go to the tree and come back' they tell her. She loves doing that. These old people and their constant chatter. What do they have so much to talk about? Meenu makes four trips to the red-flower-tree by the time they catch up with her. There is a cluster of three benches here and they always sit and relax. Meenu sits too. 

Squirrels chase each other up the tree. Mommy birds and Daddy birds return to their nests and begin a heated evening discussion. A row of red ants climb and weave in and out of the roots, going somewhere with single minded attention. 'Meenu', her mother calls her, 'red ants bite. Don't go near them'. Meenu tries to balance herself on the root of the strong tree. 'Ouch'! Ants bite. She blinks a few times and holds back her tears. 'What happened Meenu. Come here' Meenu ignores her. She knows if she gets on her lap she will cry! 

Adult Meenu is back in Pune after a really long time. An office conference has brought her here. She is alone and the evening is a long one. She orders a cab from the hotel and hires it for the evening. The driver is a friendly young man. He is happy to drive her to her old school, to her house and is intrigued when she asks him to park the cab on a road side. 'You have a friend house here?' the driver asks her. Meenu shakes her head, not willing to answer. She walks up the roadside. She can feel in her mind the rough trunk of the tree with red flowers. She walks up and down the street. She is sure she is on the correct place. Where is the tree? She can see the cluster of benches, the road is wider and paved, the place is neater, but where is the tree? She sits on the bench and looks around puzzled. The squirrels, the birds, the ants, where are they? The tree, Oh! that ant bite. Meenu sits on the bench. Now she cries. 

The driver sees her red eyes. 'What happened didi. Why are you crying he asks gently'. What can she tell him. She cries for the lost red flower tree. Would he understand? How can you explain that you cry for a tree you had forgotten for 15 years? The grief is deep. But this she cannot explain. He would perhaps shrug his shoulders and laugh and say, "for this you are crying!!!" 

My painting for this week is an acrylic - The Pink Tree - 

The one that got away!

With a sense of Abandon

 A Painting and a Story # 19

Meenu (short for Meenakshi) gets off the auto-rickshaw. She swings the college backpack on to her shoulder and walks into her Grandpa's house with a light step. She loves visiting them. Her Ajji's cooking, her Thatha's conversations revive and rejuvenate. This is her haven. She can do no wrong here! 

Appetising aroma of steaming idlis wafts in from the kitchen window. Meenu realises that her tummy is rumbling and hurries in through the open door. She waits at the table with her Thatha. He tells her stories from Ramayana or Mahabharata or sometimes he tells her things from the newspaper. Thatha has hardly begun his story.... and his words are drowned in loud screeches.  The bulbuls, the mynah, the parakeets .... what a noise they make! They chatter, they call, they sing. They have made their home in the trees and bushes around Grandpa's house. 'Thatha I can't hear you! What a noise they are making' Meenu complains. 

Thatha shakes his head, 'It's noise to you. They sing because they feel like it. You must learn their sense of abandon. They sing like nobody is listening.' he says....  ('That's not true' she thinks... 'they sing to call their loved one'!)

Come let me show you something he says taking her in. Scattered on his bed, is an open steel trunk, and a medley of assorted wooden artefacts. An intricately carved photo frame, an unstable toy chair, an uneven fretwork snowflake... and more unfinished work! 'You made them?' Meenu is amused.

They sing like nobody is listening.

Meenu looks at her Grandpa. His words ring in her ears. On her way home in the evening she stops at the local craft store. She loads her bag with drawing books and paints and brushes.

She is going to paint like nobody is looking. Yes that's where she will begin! 

When you paint like nobody is looking! watercolour - Flowers

The Boy on the Mound

 A Painting and a Story # 18

King Vikramaditya is a legendary king of ancient India ruling in the region of Ujjain. He is known to have been generous, wise and successful. Today I will tell you a story that I read many years ago in a school text book. It is a Hindi story called Vikramaditya's Seat. The story begins many many years after the reign of Vikramaditya. 

Six shepherd boys take their sheep and cattle to a hilly place for grazing. During the spare time they play games and explore the place. One day one of the boys climbs up a raised mound and sits on it. The Boy on the Mound and says with flourish, "I am the wise man. Bring your problems to me and I will solve them." The other boys are amused and approach him with some fake and some real problems. The Boy on the Mound tugs at his imaginary moustache and listens deeply to their questions! He then delivers judgement. His friends are astonished at the very wise pronouncements of the Boy on the Mound. Soon the news spreads. Families from the village and elders from other villages begin to seek him out him on the mound. Every time the boy sits on the mound he delivers wise solutions. But when he gets off the mound the boy remains a playful shepherd boy with no claim to greatness. When the local king hears of this he has the mound dug up. Lo and behold! Under the mound is the Seat of Vikramaditya. It is an exquisite stone throne with carved angels on either side of the seat. .... The king takes the throne back to his palace hoping to sit and deliver wise judgements from it. He tries to sit on it. But the angels on either side decide that the king is not as pure of heart and mind as the young boy. The angels fly away taking the throne with them. To this day we do not know where the angels took the throne!

As a young girl this story fascinated me at many levels. Today I bring you this story as a possibility of an entirely different kind. Most women (and men!) play 3 or 4 distinct roles. The way a woman thinks and speaks at office is entirely different from the way she thinks and speaks to family, to neighbour, to a club member etc. You hear her speaking on phone and even by just her tone you can guess who she is speaking to! Over the years one of these roles takes on a more dominant space in her mind.

Sometimes we get so wedded to our behaviour it sticks to us and becomes our personality. What we put on at will gradually becomes second skin. And the persona that we have assumed guides our behaviour! I can vouch for that. Because complete strangers, who have just seen me walking into the room, have asked me... "Ma'am, are you a teacher?!!!"

When I think that I am this or that... say... environmentalist, or devotee, or nationalist, or ardent fan... etc I am thinking and behaving from that space. My language changes, my behaviour is modified and I become that. that is my second skin. And I never get out of that mode. 

Can we.. like that boy, get on a 'mound' and change our personality? Maybe tomorrow when I get out of bed...  I decide that I am stylish-chilled out... or spiritual-focused... or fighting fit marathon runner... and lo and behold... tada... I eventually become so? 

Do you want to change your persona? I invite you to get into the folds of this soft cuddly quilt. Think of what persona you want to wake up with. (persona not person!) And lo and behold! There you are... with your brand new personality. Just warn your near and dear ones!!

Cotton Quilt - Watercolour