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.

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.