My teacher, Ravi mam, brought in his wife and his daughter to see what his new student had created.
There was appreciation and encouragement in their eyes.
I was aware that there were many young students in his class who might have done a better job; but I was special, a ‘challenged’ child doing his first creation at the age of 53.
It all started when I joined the painting class a couple of months ago. My teacher welcomed me to be part of his batch of young students (the youngest was around 4 and the eldest around 15).
The students looked at me with curious eyes and wondered what prompted such an old man to come to learn painting. They did not know my inspiration lay in people much senior to me
It was a couple of years back when I met my aunt’s mother-in-law in Newport, UK; she was around 85 then. I was amazed to see the walls full of paintings she had drawn. She told me she had worked all her life to bring up her sons. It was only after retirement that she found this new passion. I took a photograph of her standing beside her ‘Haywain’ painting. I now use this picture in motivational trainings at my workplace.
Another aunt of mine is an inspiration to many. She is in her 70s now, but her actions belie her age. She is the reigning champion in table tennis for a decade now. She is also an avid follower of Indian classical music. She is no dilettante when it comes to painting too.
I do not know what happiness my inspirers derive out of their painting hobby but I know what this activity gave me.
When I sit down with my canvas and my easel, I have a strange feeling of losing myself. It is a sort of weightless feeling that I imagine astronauts experience. There is no gravity from worldly worries. This was the first activity during which I did not think of my work-related pressures and would just get lost.
I would become part of the picture; I would get inside the canvas, and be one of the brushstrokes.
I can exactly feel the intensity of Howard Pyle’s words - “Throw your heart into the picture and then jump in after it”.
It is as if I am in a mysterious lab, converting the fourth dimension (the time I am spending) into the two dimensions of the frame and releasing an invigorating energy, purifying my whole being.
Folks, I guess this is Nirvana. Try it out.
Reproduction of Van Gogh – Wheatfield and Cypress, 1889
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