Beautiful or Ugly?

#MyThursdayThing 

In April, a couple of weeks into the lockdown, Sangeet Shyamala, (my alma mater) offered to organise online art and design classes to be conducted by Tarini Sharma.  Tarini, the talented daughter of my very dear friend, is in her final year of graduation course that she is pursuing from SVA, NYC (School of Visual Art, New York City). Currently home due to Covid pandemic, she agreed to conduct these art and design sessions with us.

Tarini, through her sessions emphasised on many things, the elements of art, expression, composition but most of all she emphasised on thought. She would ask what the thought behind this work is, when we would come back with our assignments. Sometimes there was a strong thought, sometimes not, but her question always was, what was your thought. And once the thought was shared, she would evaluate the work basis that, to suggest whether the work was successful or not. We looked forward to her assignments and the challenges she was throwing at us. 

On one such Wednesday evening, the assignment she suggested was to express, visually, in an abstract manner, our interpretation of “beautiful and ugly”. We had time till Saturday to submit the assignment. The assignment got me thinking at a different level. Before this, I had never paid attention to what was it that I found beautiful and what was it that I absolutely abhorred. I had never given value to my feelings conceptually. I had created various works of art in the past, expressing happy and not-so-happy feelings, but never before had I been posed this question.

For two days until Friday evening I was just sketching in my book and thinking about these two adjectives and what they mean to me. I realised during this time that there are a lot of things that are beautiful around me and it is not difficult to put a finger on what is it that I find beautiful. It was the Ugly that was the real challenge. Later, on Saturday, when I was describing my thought process to the class, someone commented that it was an interesting insight that beautiful is not difficult to find or express.

So as I struggled to bring clarity in my thoughts I started to note down what is it that I completely cannot stand and therefore find ugly. I concluded after much deliberation with myself that it was violence and bloodshed, lack of freedom and dishonesty and the suffocation caused due to these, that I completely loathed. Everything else, according to me, could be managed, but the damage caused by the above is often irreversible. I started to paint, I wanted to complete my Ugly first. Ugly has many layers. In art as well as in life. Think about it. Isn’t it true, the various shades of grey in the negative character of a story? So I started by coating my paper with off-white and ochre shades. I began developing my work by emotionally expressing my rising feeling of suffocation. I used a pen. I wasn’t thinking much. I just imagined myself to be extremely angry, suffocated and pained and expressed the same through lines. Whenever there is violence, bloodshed, suffocation, there is also smoke, thick, dark, black, soot-filled smoke. I wanted to capture that essence in my work. I wanted the viewer to experience what I was feeling and my shades of black and grey came to my rescue. I have a feeling if someone had measured my heart rate then, it might have been very high. I worked on it till late in the night and once my blacks and greys had dried, the work was topped with a layer of red to depict, violence and bloodshed. I never experienced so much intensity in such a short time. I have been working intensely before, but I realised that when a work got heavy I would often move away for some time, take a break. However, there was a deadline this time and my mind was full of thoughts that I had to bring out on paper soon. It was an intense experience indeed. I had no energy to do the other work on beautiful that night and left it for the last minute. I managed to finish in time. Beautiful was easy. Beautiful is a light, spirited feeling; it makes one happy and assures us that all is not yet lost.

In the class the next day when describing the thought, I was clear as never before what exactly my idea was. I started with the statement; “Beautiful and Ugly” are the two sides of the same coin, aren’t they?  As the class progressed we saw that everyone’s Ugly was more beautiful, artistically speaking. Ugly was beautiful because it had layers, it seemed more believable. Why so, I questioned later? Was it because that’s all that we were seeing around us and hence conscious of the layers of Ugly or was it that we were taking Beautiful for granted? I myself do not know the answer.

See the case of the Covid-19 pandemic—on the one hand, there is the distress of the sick, the anguish of the poor and marginalised, the helplessness of the medical and administrative staff all over the world, the apathy of the governments, and on the other, there is also negligible pollution levels, clean and clear rivers, blue skies, rare birds and also a human side of the common people who are going out of their way to help out those who are less privileged. Wasn’t this beautiful and Ugly at the same time?

Thank you, my dear Tarini, for pushing me to think in this manner. I agree, it is always important to be clear about the thought behind a work. However, the clarity I achieved in the process of this assignment took me to another plane, philosophically speaking. I think I am still there…

©Shubhra
#5  June 25, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.

A Desolate Disease

#MyThursdayThing 

The cases of Covid-19 in the country are on the rise. As the lockdown begins to lift, everyone’s probability of getting infected has also dramatically risen. Some people who have no other option carry their sanitizers and their masks and venture out with the hope of coming back home safe. Those who have an option are staying put at home because it is better and safer that way. Covid-19 may not be that fatal but it definitely is a very depressing disease.

I stayed in my home (Kanpur) till I was 18 and then left for higher studies. In the period that followed I stayed with my aunt, then as a paying guest, then all by myself, etc, at different places in different situations. I missed home, my parents and grandparents often, but most of all I missed them when I was unwell. In the discomfort of the illness, the kind words, the care and concern, the company, someone sitting by your side was all I needed and it never came close to what I had experienced at home. My grandmother had been my Florence Nightingale.

My grandmother, though a very stern person, was known to convert into this soft-hearted empathetic caregiver, should anyone at home be unwell.  She would sit by the bedside through the day, checking your pulse or fever and keep checking in at night too. If the temperatures rose high, she would place cold towels on the head, would feed you good, nutritious food, tell stories and even play cards. An otherwise curt, no-nonsense lady had this nurturing side to her that we all adored. As a child I would remember how I secretly loved falling sick. I was never upset that I would not be allowed to play or go to school, because the pampering and attention one would get when unwell was great fun too. To make a confession here, there were times when I thanked God when I got fever because then not only was I saved from homework woes but for a few days no one at home would scold me for anything.

Everyone, when ill wants that extra care. The body is weak, the mind plays games, it is always a good idea then to have company.  Someone who can keep a watch on the illness and its parameters and also chit-chat with the sick when needed.  That’s what caregivers do.

However, Covid-19, is a sadistic and lonesome disease. If a person is suspected to have contracted it or been in areas where infected people may have been, he/she has to isolate himself/herself till the results of the test come out. Isolation or self-quarantine means at home but not in contact with anyone. My friend recently quarantined herself for 14 days when she returned home after doing relief work in a Covid hot-spot. Her daily experience of being all by herself in her room for 2 weeks was something I witnessed closely. Definitely not something I was envious of.

A journalist recently tweeted her experience when she tested positive and had to go into an isolation ward at a Covid centre. There was no AC in the room, only a table fan, no TV and her phone was her only companion. She was given food  and hot water from time to time. There would be a bang on the door, a person in PPE would come, keep the food and water at a distance and leave. Her temperature and other symptoms were regularly monitored. The only time she was allowed out of the ward was for a Covid test. She safely made it to the other side and was discharged when her tests finally came negative. All the time that she was unwell, her phone and video calls with her family were the only love and care she received. 

However, if a person with co-morbidities and/or weak immune system gets Covid-19, the option most likely would be hospitalisation, ICU, maybe ventilator and who knows whether he/she would survive. What happens in this scenario? The family members drop the patient at the hospital and then don’t know when they can meet him/her again or whether they will meet again. For the patient everything happens in a click, no one gets time to say goodbyes and they don’t even know if they will come out of the place. Since the fatality rate is low, most make it to the other side but with an experience that is likely to change them forever.

If you get hunted down by Covid-19, you fight it out all alone! No physical support, love, presence of any of your loved ones… a very, very scary situation to be in.  Therefore I call Covid-19 more of a desolate/lonely disease then a dreaded disease.

 

In my mind I would definitely not like to be in this situation nor want to see any of my loved ones there. So my mantra, have haldi and adrak (turmeric and ginger) water, exercise, paint, listen to music and stay at home. No point, stepping out and risking, if not for anything for the sake of the love and nurturing that I missed so much when I was unwell and away from home. My grandmother’s love and nurturing was at another level but anything close to that kind of attention will also not be available at all, at home or at hospital to anyone whatsoever.

If you get Covid-19, the recovery there on will be a desolate journey. Something that I am prepared for in my head but do not wish it on myself or anyone… Staying home and staying safe maybe the best option we all have.

©shubhra

#4  June 18, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.

Proper Women?

#MyThursdayThing

I am currently listening to an audio book, Broad Strokes, 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That  Order) by Bridget Quinn. Listening? Yes, a few months back my cousin introduced me to Audible by Amazon and I found listening to books a great experience (since I am an extremely slow reader).  However, Audible is not the point of my post today and I digressed. Coming back to the book, it talks about the lives and art of 15 women artist and in the second chapter I came across this sentence, “ … Regardless, in seventeenth-century Holland, needlework was something all proper women, highborn or low, should do well. Something a well-brought-up woman took pride in…” This sentence took me back several years to my childhood, my school, my art journey and I decided to speak  about this meandering,  triggered  by this one sentence in this book by Bridget Quinn.

Some years back, when someone asked me, if I had painted and played with colours as a child? I realised, actually no. I asked my mother, if I had painted, scribbled with crayons as a child. (I am the eldest of three sisters and I had no memory of ever seeing anything that my parents showed me that this was made by me as a child.) My mother confirmed that any such experiences with colour would only have happened back in preschool. She did remember me bringing home a lot of play dough and making things with it. I thought backto my school and wondered if art was ever taught in our school? Only to get the same answer again—no.

I studied in a convent—St. Mary’s Convent, Kanpur—till class tenth. The best years of my life, the best school one could have possibly gone to in a city like Kanpur. I loved my school and I still do. I have the best friends from my school that I am still in touch with. We often (especially since the lockdown started) chat on Zoom with one another and talk fondly of our days back then. Having said this, my school for all its infrastructure, its brilliance, the teachers, the sisters, the playgrounds, did not have an art room or art classes or even art as a subject. We had an SUPW period (socially useful productive work). We had to often make craft with waste material and take it to school but all that had to be done at home… As far as I remember, most SUPW periods were used up for either annual day concert, choir practice or for sports or basketball. As part of a class and as part of houses we had to spruce up the bulletin boards in classes and corridors but usually those were in the form of collages. No art as such. Given this background, when one reached middle school and one was given homework to draw maps, biology diagrams etc, how could one do it? I started to believe, looking at my diagrams that I can never draw, I am not a creative person. Any latent possibility of being an artist got killed by the grades on the biology file, till I discovered my creative side in Pune, while pursuing my MBA.

Coming back to SMC, my school as it was called. It had a fabulous needlework room and a great teacher in Sr. Agnes. When we reached class fourth we started to do some of these ‘homely’ creative activities like knitting a muffler. I still remember I made a dark blue and light blue coloured muffler for my grandfather.  In the years that followed, I made cross stitch landscape that was huge, 24”x30” and which hung in the drawing room of our house till the last day that we were there. I made a gown, and several other things that I don’t remember now… we learnt all the different kinds of stitches—satin stitch, chain stitch, French knot, hemming, piping etc. Our needle work room was huge and very peaceful. There used to be pin-drop silence in that room as Sr. Agnes was a terrorbut in a nice way… she would not see the front of your embroidery, but the back. If you had not knotted your threads and or cut the threads neatly, you would get a whack on your knuckles. Thanks to her, I still remember all my stitches and I can mend my clothes and re-tack my broken buttons. The other day, on our Zoom call, we all remembered Sr. Agnes and how her training had stood the test of time and we still remember our embroidery lessons.

However, the line …needlework was something all proper women, highborn or low, should do well. Something a well-brought-up woman took pride in… by Bridget Quinn, in her book Broad Strokes made me sit up and wonder. Why would a school otherwise so brilliant, looking after the all-round development of the girls (sports, debates, singing, theatre, LTS etc) not include art in their curriculum and rather have needle work as compulsory subject till class eighth or ninth?The answer probably lies in the statement above. The school was probably in consultation with and maybe based on the demands of the society was preparing young girls to be “Proper Women”. Needlework definitely qualified as a requisite for being a proper woman, not sure about art. 

I remember an incident when Sr. Christina our English teacher in one of the senior classes, scolded all of us in the assembly because the notes of the national anthem were wrongly sung by a few. She punished all of us and in her anger said, “I know why you girls come to this school, not to study or learn music or life skills, but just to get a certificate of a convent educated English speaking girl.” We all just giggled at that time, but later when I grew up and my parents also stepped in the marriage market to find a suitable groom for their daughter, I often heard this statement, from them, or relatives or in matrimonial ads  etc…  “convent educated English speaking girl”, and then I would always remember Sr. Christina and how right she was.

I found my calling by accident. I was 22 years old and pursuing my MBA course, in Pune, when I made my first painting, sitting on the Chatturshingi Hill, inspired by the dramatic sunset. I never looked back. In 2016, I went to Kanpur, 13 years after we had shifted lock, stock and barrel from the city and I visited my school. It was still the same, bulletin boards in corridors, the quiet and peaceful needlework room, huge music room with many pianos. Sr. Agnes was no more and many teachers had retired; some had even passed over to another world. I met Sr. Divya, the then Principal, and gifted her a painting for the school. I am not sure if I am the only professional artist from the school but I was definitely the only one who had gifted a painting to the school as per Sr.Divya.

The school still did not have an art room or art as part of syllabus… However as I happen to glance at one timetable on a bulletin board I realised SUPW and needle work still remain…

©Shubhra
#3  June 11, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.

How are you?

#MyThursdayThing

At the start of the lockdown I got a call from a friend, “Hello! How are you?” “Fine”, I said. He further asked, “So what is keeping you busy in lockdown and how are you coping?” Listening to his concerned voice, I admitted that my days were full of chores and my mind full of anxiety. I have no money coming in and I am not even able to paint. He quickly responded, “That’s the case with all of us, this is what all of us are facing, you are not the only one.” I made a mental note, true; I am not the only one, better not to speak on this topic. We spoke a bit more about the Corona numbers, the news and status across the world, the fact that there was no liquor at home and ended the conversation. I decided, not to talk of my inner anxieties to anyone because each and every one of us is going through something similar.

As the countrywide lockdown that was enforced to stop the spread of Corona Virus, began, I was edgy and confused. More than the lockdown and the virus, it was the uncertainty about our future and the horror of the disease that was worrying me. My classes had stopped, all my offsite art retreats were in abeyance and obviously these were not the times when you could showcase your work or sell some art. Things had come to a standstill like they had for most of us. Being paranoid due to the disease, extra safety and cleanliness measures meant extra work. Half the time would go in cleaning surfaces, washing everything 10 times and still not sure if we were safe. With domestic help being away, the chores of the house (though shared between my sister and me) added to the work and fatigue as well. The whole day would go in these chores and whatever was left I would try to paint, to release some pent-up emotions. I was definitely not in a balanced frame of mind like many others but there was nothing one could do except to reconcile to the fact that this is how it will be now for the foreseeable future.

That day my conversation with my friend made me realize that this anxiety was something I had to deal with alone and I can’t really talk about it. No one has the bandwidth to listen. So my standard response to how are you during the Covid crisis has become…“Same as everyone else, coping, some days are good some days are not…” This satisfies most people because it resonates with them…some days good and some days bad.

I realize that we are concerned about the well-being of the others but seldom do we—including me—go beyond this. We don’t have the bandwidth to engage and listen. Yes…we just don’t listen. We don’t have the bandwidth to listen because we are always preoccupied in our own world. We ask, “How are you?” but never listen to the reply.

Recently my best friend has been going through a really, really rough patch in her life. When it began, we spoke over a few chat messages to figure out what was wrong and then I sent her a message that I am here whenever you wish to talk. She did call after a couple of days and spoke about all that was happening, and I listened. My mind was worked up. While listening to her, I was forming my own opinions and views and what I would have done, and what she should do and what she should say, etc. I was very tempted in between to tell her a few things that were crossing my mind. However, I somehow just managed to stay quiet and listen. Very angry at the people who had put her in trouble and at life itself, feeling her trauma inside, I just kept quiet and told her that she could call me anytime she wanted to talk. I, however, shared my anger at this situation with my sister. In turn, she said, tell her this, tell her that…I just replied…now is not the time to speak; now is the time to just listen. She is going through this situation and she has to deal with it herself, I have to just be there and listen to her. 

Before this incident, it had never occurred to me that how the simple act of listening and not spurting out any instructions or judgment can be so therapeutic, not only for the one who is talking but also for the one who is listening. The act of listening actually means emptying out your mind, letting go of your pre-conceived notion and listening to the unique situation, story, problem that the other person is sharing with you. Even if you have gone through something similar, it will still stay ‘similar’, but not exactly the same. Two different people will have two different stories and experiences. They can never be the same. Listening means being a part of someone as they trust you with their feelings, thoughts or circumstances. 

But do we listen? I am not sure. I am not sure of myself too. I intend to, but do I listen? We hardly have it in us to give away all our thoughts, judgments and views, blank out the mind that is occupied with our issues and fill it with what the other person needs to share with us. We are all so busy dealing with our own stories and situations. We are all looking for people who will listen to us because we want to speak.

We ask, “How are you?” and often the answer is a standard, “Same, some good some not so good”, it sounds familiar to our own world and we move on…

© Shubhra
#2  June 4, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.