Me and My Painting

During my childhood days, I think I was in my 7th or 8th standard, when my mom along with few other enthusiastic ladies in town, were pretty much determined and ultimately formed a Mahila Samiti (women organization). As far as I could remember, the organization was not very much into women welfare and all, but they organized hell lot of children extracurricular activities and cultural programs. Everything was perfectly fine, till they started those Sunday morning yoga/drawing classes. The classes were being conducted at a nearby school and OMG! it was such a torture for me. As my mom was an active member of the Mahila Samiti,  I couldn’t have bunked those classes. In fact, she used to take me with her a little earlier. At least, yoga session was little fun, but immediately after that we had to attend our art lecture.

My association with drawing and painting was simply horrible and I usually used to get highly tensed during my science exams, whenever I used to come across questions like “Explain with neat and clean diagram” I remember one incident in the art school when our art teacher asked us to draw a mango. I tried to imagine the shape of a mango and sometimes all of a sudden it used to appear in my mind, but only for fraction of a second and then used to disappear instantly.  I tried a lot to have kept the mango image inside my head for a little longer, but all my struggle simply went in vain. Ultimately somehow I drew something, but my teacher said that it looked more like an apple. Even though I was quite disappointed, but I had to console myself and wondered "It's OK, at least I could draw a fruit. Well, a fruit is a fruit and whether apple or mango, how does it matter anyway?

Immediately after the drawing class, we used to rush to our houses to watch the great Mahabharata TV soap on doordarshan at 9 am. After Mahabharata we usually used to play cricket match at one playground or the other. My drawing torture was not only limited to early morning Sunday classes, but I even had to participate in the drawing competitions as well, especially whenever it was conducted by the Mahila Samiti. During those days, one of my elder cousin brothers Rana Bhai, visited us after his 10th final exams. He stayed with us for almost a couple of weeks and Rana Bhai was not only brilliant in his studies, he also had excellent hands in painting as well. One day my mom asked him to draw a beautiful painting, so that she could have placed it inside the showcase. One afternoon after I returned from my school, I was totally amazed to see a stunning painting inside our showcase. It was an early morning painting and the sky color looked so glorious. The painting was in fact, quite simple and it only had a small hut, a coconut tree and few bushes. The cool part was that everything was colored completely black. Well, that's what they really look like at dawn.

I was so impressed with that painting and seriously wanted to try it out by myself. I asked my cousin brother "How you created such kind of a masterpiece and it looks so simple"

He replied "Yes, it’s actually very simple and the sky color did all the magic. I applied red and blue for that pinkish kind of effect and then, little red and green for the yellowish effect. Also a little bit of red and yellow for the orange effect.  Finally I applied the white color for those clouds. It's all about how you mix the colors"

Wow! The sky looked so amazing and colorful. My cousin taught me how to mix those colors and how casually we need to apply the brush. To be honest, It wasn't very difficult for me and on my very first attempt, I could create almost 40 to 50% of that kind of colorful magical sky. I was so much delighted and later experimented with the same painting, a couple of times more. My mom was so proud of me that time and said "See, if you try you could also make beautiful painting"

One day, I drew the same painting in one of the art competition and everyone was stunned to look at my creation. I noticed that few people gathered in front of me while I was creating my masterpiece. That day, for the first time in my life, I received first prize award in any drawing competition. Oh! I was so happy that moment. After a couple of weeks I tried the same painting in an another drawing competition. As we used to live in a small town, usually in all such competitions we used to see familiar faces, including the jury members as well. Even though, I was able to mix the colors artistically that day also and many people even liked it, but I received second prize that day. 

After few more weeks I again participated in yet another such kind of a competition. After I looked at the panelists, I thought to draw something else that particular day. But my painting creativity was only limited to early morning sky and I just went for it. Again I created a beautiful masterpiece and while I was busy with my brush, I heard few whispers nearby “Eeee, again, the same painting” I was little embarrassed that moment, but my painting could still manage the third prize. After that competition, I seriously decided that  I already had enough with my favorite painting and from that day onward, I never participated in any of the drawing competitions. Also I never ever tried to create the same masterpiece again. Last time I went home, I saw the same original painting drawn by my cousin, inside that same old showcase and whenever I use to see that thing, I somehow get a little nostalgic.