Painting/s
As a kid, I used to love painting/s. As far as I can remember, I was never a critical observer. Always being scolded by elders for being careless with everything, I could never keep track of even the simplest things. Maybe that’s the reason I found playing around with colours fun. A tree here, two hills there, add a sparkling river, and voila, a masterpiece was born. Such were the humble beginnings of my journey.
Some might say nostalgia is a liar but things were simple when everyone appreciated my masterpiece and didn’t complain about incorrect proportions. When the biggest struggle was waking up at 5:30 am in winter mornings to do the bare minimum assignments to avoid getting the ruler because procrastinating was something I inherited from my past life.
With time I grew; both in age and the trade, a little if not much. By high school, I had begun to explore the tools of the trade. Learning how compositions work and how colors mix and dupe our eyes. So no Avinav, the dress IS BLACK AND BLUE NOT WHITE AND GOLD. As my technical knowledge grew, somehow my taste remained childish. I never really delved into the culture of paintings, never understood why the Girl with a Pearl Earring was different than any light study or why Mona Lisa’s smile was a par above other portraits from the Renaissance. I however found Van Gogh’s paintings fun. The way they made everyday scenes lively and funny. Those bold thick strokes were comforting. Maybe because like the thick well-placed strokes in his paintings, those in mine were also similar; poorly placed with no care but thick. Having fun was all that mattered. And that was great while it lasted.
But as J. F. Kennedy said, Change is the law of life. As time went on, I started to lose the joy of painting. There was no tragedy, no sudden realizations. Just a slow death of joy like a candle eventually burning itself out. Like a river emptying a lake or a monument slowly eroding to nothingness. Okay, I’ll admit; finishing school, leaving old friend circles, and moving to a new city might be a big deal to some but it didn’t bother me much. After all, if all is to end in oblivion on the grand scale of eternity, what is the point of doing anything? Similarly, paintings now seemed like a waste of ink. I mean it’s not like there was a lack of enough mediums to capture moments and the ‘motions. Van Gogh could have just journaled and Vinci’s wife would have been as happy with a few heartfelt lines. In the meantime, the world would still go on without a few colours being poured here and there. My own paintings, which I was once proud of, now seemed colourless; a seemingly pointless assembly of smears and smudges. Once an avid canvas murderer, I let the paint breathe for another day while I struggled to breathe occasionally.
This bout of pessimistic nihilism infected more than just my paintings. One could say the colours in my life started to fade as well. My old friends slowly felt like people I used to know. New friends felt too distant, family a bunch of familiar faces to hide my feelings from. The sky always seemed hazy and the water muddy. I was not depressed just not happy for a while. More precisely, nothing seemed to matter. It was a lack of motivation to do anything other than survive. I knew something needed to change. While struggling within, I had little hope that it would come from the outside. But such is the humour of fate, the best things happen when we least expect it.
By now I was halfway through college and busy exploring in a desperate attempt to stay distracted. New communities, new acquaintances, new responsibilities, and new friends. New activities and new escapes every day. I wasn’t painting but I was doing things. I was healing slowly on the outside but it wasn’t until that one lunch that brought the break of dawn. Like the first beam of light that breaks the cold night, I found something that kickstarted my heart. Little did I know a flirtatious wink from the right person was all this sack of pulsing meat needed to beat ferociously once again. It’s funny because it’s the truth. This was my renaissance.
I now, somehow, understood the beauty in Mona Lisa’s smile. The haunting familiarity in the Girl with Pearl Earring that you simply can’t put a finger on. The pain behind Gogh’s seemingly playful lines. I know my paintings are nowhere near anything a good artist can muster up and I won’t get there anytime soon. But for now, I’ll pick up the brush one more time. Not because I want to be among those names but because my life is colourful once more. And maybe deep inside I want her to know that she is the reason I feel this way. I know I’ll never have the courage to say it to her face. So until then, I shall paint just one more painting/s.
