What do you see?

What comes to our mind when we think of art? Maybe MonaLisa hanging in Louvre, or maybe the billion-dollar painting by Picasso or back home say by Hussain hanging in a rich man’s house, maybe the Taj Mahal or the temple art in Khajurao or churches in Italy, the Sistine Chapel the list could go on. Art means different things to different people. However, the one thing that is common in all art form is how it engages with the audience, the viewer. 

The Jan-Path- Janpath Station

Art is a means of self-expression. While there is no denying that the artist speaks to the world through the medium, however, when art is on a smaller scale for private viewing, it is largely artists narrative which has been appreciated and bought by an individual or a museum or a collective. Artist when painting mostly doesn’t think who is going to buy this work. Public art on the other hand is also about who is going to absorb or consume this work. That to my mind is also the biggest differentiator between Public Art and Art which hangs in private homes and museums.

From 2010 till now I got an opportunity to create art for the various stations of the Delhi Metro. (https://www.shubhrachaturvedi.com/installations-murals

You Are Here-Central Secretariat Station

). Along with fellow artist (Vibhor Taneja and Vishwesh Sant), I have conceptualised, designed and executed artworks for 5 metro stations so far. The experience of making art for an urban space, at that scale, with different materials for varied target groups was not only challenging but an eye-opener. Before the first project, I had never gone out of my studio and done anything of this nature.

Khwabon ka Karvan- Jamia Milia Islamia

The artwork in a public space like a metro station is viewed by varied kinds of people, a tourist, a worker, a vendor, a businessman and a student of an elite college alike. The visual language has to be powerful and yet simple so that all can understand it. That is the beauty of public art, it brings out art from elite spaces to the masses. Everyone can enjoy, reflect and try and make sense of it. It is also an opportunity for the artist to say that which could go out to a larger section of society. So in one of our works “You are Here” at the Central Secretariat Metro Station we thank the Delhi Metro for making our lives so easy like time travel one enters the tunnel in New Delhi and within minutes comes out in the Old Delhi, the Delhi where our heritage still thrives in the mosques and the forts and the bazaars. In another work at the Janpath Station, we have brought out how the common man and along with the monuments in the vicinity of the station all come together to give the city its characters. Recognizable forms, big scale and colour all make the viewer stop and see the work. Taking a selfie in front of the work is a new thing. At the work in Indira Gandhi Domestic Airport Metro Station, we gave the audience a tour of Delhi. If anyone comes to Delhi for the first time, what is it that they will find here? Calling it “Delhi Hues”, this was also our chance to make people stop in their everyday rush and see and recognise what a great and rich city they live in. To engage with the academic community, our work at the Jamia Milia Islamia Metro Station, “Khwabon ka Karvan”, gives tribute to the education system and how dreams get nurtured in an academic place and that the dreams do come full circle. The artwork is lively and colourful as should be in a place like a university metro station. Fortunately our client, the Delhi Metro, never interfered in the creative process, once they approved the idea.  

However, in public art, the concept at drawing board and working at the site can be far from each other and this we learnt the hard way. Working at the site with workers can be a different experience and full of happy anecdotes for later on. In our first project, one day, at about 1.30 am the toughened glass that was to be fitted on the artwork shattered, leaving us all shocked, hassled and delaying our work. In another station, the room at the station where our fabricated work panels were kept got locked. The key broke in the lock. These were some sophisticated locks from a Japanese company and it took almost 10 days for the door to be replaced and the room and panels to be accessible. We came up with happy phrases for the occasion, our favourite being the dialogue from the TV series CID, “Daya, darwaza tod do”

Delhi Hues- Indira Gandhi Domestic Airport

  (Daya break the door). At another time, once at a site, we took a foldable chair with us to sit. While we were gone for tea, our chair vanished and just to be found with the security guard who insisted that it was metro property and therefore his and that he won’t give it to us. In our last project at Jamia station, we went wrong in the calculation and the metal cutouts that reached the site were 4 times than the actual sizes. We realized our mistake only when the cut-outs reached the station and you can imagine what must have happened to us, post that. Most stations we worked on are underground and are only lit artificially. In our enthusiasm, the first set of works we created were backlit, side-lit and we created drama with light to ensure that it catches the viewer attention. It did catch attention for sure but with time the lights went out and were not replaced or sometimes the people forgot to switch on the lights and without light, the artwork hardly appealed. We learnt our lesson for future projects, which is to provide as much as you can with ambient lights and zero maintenance.  

The Heritage Saga- Jama Masjid

An idea in the head goes through a journey of paper, computer, workshop, CNC machines, hammers and drills and paints and sprays and screws and bolts and then after several months takes birth. When we sit down to ideate, think and visualise what we want to see out there and then when at the time of installation we see our little forms grow big and get up on the wall the feeling is akin to a parent seeing a child graduate. Believe me, there is nothing more satisfying for an artist.

It feels even better when in front of your work, strangers stop and take a picture and then post it on social media or when you meet someone you don’t know and they say yes we have seen your work at the such and such station. That feeling is overwhelming and the moment is priceless.

This October, we complete 10 years since our first public artwork got completed and when we got complimented by none other than Mr E Sreedharan. This post is to commemorate the journey since then. 

© Shubhra
#14 October 22, 2020

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

Excerpts from the above post were written for an online exhibition currently on in Paris https://www.urbansemiotics.online

https://www.urbansemiotics.online/post/shubhra-chaturvedi-on-urban-semiotics

Home: Far Away and Long Ago…

#MyThursdayThing

A friend once told me that there are a cat and a dog inside each one of us. He said the dogs are attached to people and the cats are attached to places. For me, I think this statement holds because the cat in me is very attached to places. The houses I have lived in and the places I have visited and the cities I have toured. Anyplace I have stayed in for more than a few nights have often been etched in my memory. (That is also a joke in our house because it doesn't take much for things to get etched in my memory says my family, always in awe of my big fat memory)

So last month when artist, Sareena Khemka, with whom I was doing an online workshop, asked to do a mixed media project on the concept of home, homelessness, migration, etc  it got me thinking of what Home meant to me and was it this current abode where I am comfortably tucked in, in these Pandemic times or is it my parent’s house, or is it my 1^st house (when I started staying on own) or my childhood home…  The answer I guess is a little of all of the above but the most share of the pie goes to my house in Kanpur. The house I was born in and left for higher studies and kept going back to in every vacation. The house which after my grandparents passed away was sold off. The house that still comes in my dreams.

Located in a well off part of the city, our house in Kanpur was built in the 1950s by my grandfather, on a  unique corner plot. It was circular in parts and then rectangular. It had a red brick exterior on the circular part and the rest of the house in white and grey. The uniqueness had made our house a landmark for the Rickshaw guys. The way to describe our house to them often would be kone wala lal eit wala ghar(The corner, red brick house).  My grandfather was a tree lover and a fruit freak so we had about 5 Mango trees, several varieties of Lemon, Gulmohar, Neem, even a Chandan (Sandalwood) tree. There were Ashok trees, grapevines, and a whole kitchen garden in the back yard. My mother had a love for flowers and gardening and she took care of the potted plants, flowering plants, and the lawn. Between them, the place was green heaven.  My grandfather had hundreds of books and he thought all the house needed was bookshelves and so each room had shelves and shelves and more shelves. The rooms in our house had funny names, I guess like we have in all old houses. So there was as usual Dadi ka kamra(Grandmother’s room), Mummy ka Kamra (mother's room), but for some funny reason, the kids' room was called the Radio wala kamra (Room with a Radio). There was a big radio that my grandfather had and it used to be kept in that room before we were born. There was a beech wala kamra(middle room) that connected to all rooms. This room had a fireplace where we all gathered at the end of the day on a cold winter evening, where many endless story and later gossip sessions were held. The second floor was called Timanjala (a word I never heard anywhere else apart from in Kanpur). The mezzanine floor was Duchchatti, a place where only my grandfather's excess books were stored and which we all were scared of.  Even though the house was constructed in post-Independent India and with quite a modern design on the exterior, the insides of the house had an old-world charm to it acquired also by the furniture it hosted which was all brought from my grandfather's service days in Roorkee.  The most prized possession in the house was an antique indoor wooden swing, kept in the balcony. It bore witness to many secret talks and thoughts and tears and laughter, as it was the place where we sisters and cousins hung out the most when we had to do our stuff away from the elders. We brought that swing with us when the house was sold and it has a proud place in my mother’s house.

The house in Kanpur was not just a house but a treasure of memories, of good times and bad, of our childhood and our youth. It was a house I loved to go back to in every break I could get when I came away from Kanpur.  Even today so many of my dreams the house I dream of is the Kanpur house. I often wonder if we were rich enough we would not have to sell the house or how would it be if the house was still there and I could fix it and use it as my studio and home. There in that house, there were more rooms than people and the result was there was scrap collected in every room.  Now I live in a house (big enough) with so much art that this house has fallen small too and to imagine all this in that house seems dreamlike.

So when Sareena, asked to do a Home Project, I decided to give tribute to my house. The house that bonds me with my childhood, with my sisters, my cousins and my childhood friends. The house that my father nurtured along with my grandfather,  where my mother married and came to, where the three of us were born and grew up and the house that made us all cry when it was sold and on the last evening before leaving, the house I so wanted to hug and say I don’t want to leave you. 

So I went down the memory lane and took out pictures and letters and thought of words and flowers and colours and maps and made this accordion-style book collage to pay tribute to my non-living (yet alive in my heart) best friend from the days gone by. I call this artwork, Home: Far Away and Long Ago (Yet so Near...)

https://youtu.be/Mb_OkGBNbB8

My sister always used to ask me to make a painting of the Kanpur house and I had always wanted to do so too but never got around to it. I guess this home project is a far better and fitting tribute to our home. While working on this project I even wrote a poem for the house but that is for another post and another blog.

©Shubhra
#11 September 3, 2020

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

Jai Ho…

#MyThursdayThing

“Guruji, Pranam! Aapne pehchana hume?”“Bilkul, tumne aur maine, dono ne amma ki sewa ki hai, tumko kaise nahi pehchanuga? ”This was my last interaction with Guruji, Pandit Jasraj, at the Nehru Park, in March 2019 after his performance. He was performing for Spic Macay’s, Music in the Park series.

Ever since I came to Delhi for my graduation, I have listened to live concerts from all genres. Specially, Hindustani classical music, thanks to Spic Macay. I had a chance to listen to Pandit Jasraj also a couple of times at Spic Macay events in college or with my uncle at elite gatherings in places like Ashoka Hotel, Siri Fort Auditorium, etc. However, my real introduction to Pandit Jasraj and his music happened about 15 years ago, when I met my Guru, Mrs Som Tewari. She was about 5 years older to Panditji and they were both disciples of Panditji’s elder brother Pandit Mani Ram, a stalwart of the Mewati Gharana. Amma, as she was called by all of us, including Panditji (she had adopted him as a son), played an important role in his musical journey. There are many stories from those days that she used to tell us, including the fact that when Amma started Sangeet Shyamala in (then called) Calcutta in 1952. Panditji was one of the first teachers there. Their connection was deep and they nurtured a bond that lasted a lifetime. Even when his career soared and his life in Mumbai got busier, Amma would always be a part of it and whenever he was in Delhi, he would make it a point to visit her at her home.

When I met Amma in 2005, we had an instant connection. She was the most progressive and spirited woman I had come across. She had an unmatched zeal for life. Every time there was a concert in the city, we would call each other and make a plan to go and see it together. I have seen so many live performances of Panditji with her. Being her chaperon at such outings, I would get to sit right in front and occasionally meet Panditji before or after the performance.

I remember an instance when he was in town for a performance and I learnt about it from a friend. I assumed that Amma would be aware of the same and I called her up, “Amma, aap aaj Panditji ka performance dekhne chalengi? Hum aapko pick karein?” (Amma, will you come for Panditji’s performance, should I pick you up). She replied that she wasn’t aware of the performance and replied, “achcha, Jasraj ne to humme bataya nahi…”. Since the venue was far or because she was upset, she didn’t come for the performance. I, however, went in the evening and then at the baithak, when there was a break, I went to meet Panditji. I introduced myself, “Guruji, Pranam, hum Amma ki shishya hain, Shubhra, aapse mile hain pehle unke saath. (Guruji, greetings, I am Amma’s student, Shubhra. I’ve met you with her earlier.) He at once reacted, “to tum ho jisne meri chugli ki. Arre maine socha, amma kahan itni door aayengi, kal subah airport jate samay unse milta jaunga, to phone nahi kiya…mujhe kya malum thaki un tak khabar pahunch jayegi… tumne daant padwa di mujhe.”(Oh, so you are the one who told her. I thought this would be too far for Amma to travel so tomorrow I would drop in to meet her on the way to the airport. How was I to know she would find out. You got me a scolding.) I also responded, “Sahi to hai guruji, ab aap phone nahi karenge to daant to padegi, mujhekya malum aapne unhe nahi bataya, hum to hamesha ki tarah unhe la rahe the apne saath.”(Well, if you don’t call, you deserve a scolding. How would I know you haven’t called her? I was going to bring her with me like always). He touched his ears and said that he vows that he will never do this again. Held my hand and had a good laugh and said “tum to meri guru behan hui, hum dono hi amma ke shagird hain”(you are my guru-sister, since we are both her students).

I met him several times post that and I was surprised he still remembered me. When Amma was unwell and in the hospital, he came to Delhi and would visit her in the hospital (though on a wheel chair himself) every other day, including on her 90^thbirthday, which was unfortunately celebrated at the hospital. He would hold her hand and sing to her in the ICU room. Her passing away in 2015, was a personal loss to him.

A year later, on Amma’s death anniversary, he called from Mumbai. I had his number on my phone but I had never spoken to him. To see the number flashing had me all nervous, but he softly said “Shubhra bol rahi hain?”(Is that Shubhra?) I said Ji Guruji, and he replied, “Aaj Amma ki punya tithi hai aur amma aayi thi mere yahan”(today is Amma’s death anniversary and she came to me). He narrated an incident when he found her photograph kept on his pillow when there was no one in room to have moved it from where it was displayed. He called me because he knew that my bond with Amma was special and one that is etched in my memory. Each year after Amma’s demise, on her birthday, Vasundhra (her daughter, my mentor and now the Director of Sangeet Shymala) would organize a remembrance with either an exhibition or a performance and Guruji, blessed the occasion. That was his bond with Amma and with all who were close to Amma. He was special for Amma and Amma was special for him. If there is an afterlife, then he must have united with her and they must be singing Raag Nat Narayan, a signature raag of the Mewati Gharana.

Guruji passed away in the US on the 17^th of August at the age of 90. His remains were brought back and yesterday, on the 20^th of August, he was bid goodbye with full state honors.

I am fortunate that I got a chance to get to know these stalwarts of music. From Amma, apart from learning music, I learnt a lot about life, art, culture. I hope to carry forward her legacy, if not through practicing music (which I feel has gone away with her), at least through art, culture and appreciation of music. From Guruji, I learnt about how an artiste never retires. At the age of 90, he was still at it and singing. He had many performances lined up and would have been performing, had the pandemic not struck. But this was not meant to be. The show ended, the curtains came down and with him an era of music of the Mewati Gharana has come to an end.

Yesterday evening the sun set on the world of Indian Classical Music.

Jai Ho, Guruji!

©Shubhra
#10 August 20th, 2020

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

Drop that fear…

#MyThursdayThing

Have you ever paid attention when a child is drawing something that they see or imagine? Their version of a face, a chair, a house, a car or any scene from their imagination? Have you ever noticed the bold uninhibited lines? Their detailing, the visual stories? When was the last time you saw a child draw? Those who have kids at home or in extended family/circle would have seen a lot of art from kids, I am sure.

 I experience kids’ art very closely. For one, I have my nieces and a nephew in my family (all less than 10 years of age) but more than that I have more than a dozen kids I teach art to, twice a week.  I see their responses to an idea and how they take it to another level. Their stories and then their colours add magic to their drawing sheet.  It is sheer pleasure, a visual treat to work with them. There is a famous quote from Picasso, “Every child is a born artist” and I so believe in it. However, as kids progress in the education system, most of them shy away from the drawing that they so uninhibitedly did a few years ago. Somehow, I feel, the right and wrong, good and bad, this way and that way come in between. But the one reason I see—perhaps the single most important cause—for children to abandon art in general or drawing in particular is fear of mistakes and a loss of spontaneity.

I realised this even more so in the last two weeks, when I happened to attend a spontaneous drawing workshop by artist Gopika Nath. The 10-day workshop was conducted on WhatsApp and had exercises which were aimed at making one shed inhibition and experiment with different techniques and mediums and tools. For example, we had to draw to music with eyes closed, or we had to see video clips of dance performances and draw quick one-second sketches or draw directly with a pen without lifting  the pen from the paper, even draw with different tools other than pen/pencil/brush, like a jhadutilli (a twig from a broom) or a stone or a piece of cardboard. Whatever one fancied, one could use. The most interesting for me was drawing with the non-dominant hand and blind contour drawings.

This meant drawing with a pen directly with my left hand and also drawing without looking at the paper and without lifting my pen. These were timed exercises and I had such fun. The results were childlike and bold. Drawing directly with pen on my sketch book gave me such confidence that I had never experienced before despite drawing and sketching now for many years. The one thing that this exercise enabled in me was letting go of the fear of that line on paper. Whatever came out on the paper was spontaneous and actually the result of eye and hand coordination. The mind was asked to shut up and it was the intuition at work. We were asked to focus on what we felt when attempting the exercise. I felt one with children I teach. Suddenly I experienced their simplicity, their freedom, their intuition and their uninhibited bold strokes.

About a decade ago, I had attended a workshop on drawing and sketching with Mark Warner, someone who is considered the best in teaching the same, and I remember how he had asked us to attempt similar exercises then. I had loved the exercises even then, but I wasn’t awed by my own results.

I probably laughed at them and never saw what they were intended to make me see. Maybe I was not ready to let go of my fears or maybe I didn’t pay much attention to the lines and forms and feelings and just laughed at the crooked result. Maybe I was too caught up in the right and wrong or maybe the time had not come. I did not understand then, what I understood now. The importance of letting go of fear, the importance of attempting that which one is unsure of. The importance of discovering new lines and forms and expressions, the importance of introducing new things like these into your daily practice and then the confidence rubs off on all the different works that one attempts.

From the kids whom I teach and from the last 10 days of work, I learnt a whole new way to deal with my ideas. I learnt a lot about art, drawing, spontaneity, myself and my responses, but most of all I realised that anybody can draw.

If you can see, you can draw. All we need is to lift that pen from our table, take that paper and just draw what we see. Leave the judgement of right and wrong aside. Get into a childlike frame of mind and just draw. Sometimes with left hand, sometimes with right, sometimes without seeing the paper, sometimes to the tune of music and sometimes abandon that pen and just pick whatever you can find, dip in some ink or paints and just draw.

I am thankful to my mentors and my students (my children) for helping me finally see what it takes to draw like a child… Just drop that fear!

©Shubhra
#8  July 30th, 2020

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

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.

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.