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.

How much is too much trust?

#MyThursdayThing

When I published my post last week, a friend responded, “It is always interesting to know what is happening with your life, Shubhra.”Well I won’t disappoint him, as I have an even more interesting tale to tell this week. My friend’s WhatsApp got hacked last week and the hacker reached out to almost all her contacts via groups, etc, impersonating her and asking for money. None of her hundreds of friends fell prey to the desperate call… except for yours truly. 

On one evening last week I saw a message on a group from my friend asking if I have Google Pay. I responded with a yes and then she came on a one-to-one WhatsApp and asked me if I can transfer Rs 4000 to her as she needed it urgently. To give a background, my friend and her husband—also a dear friend—are the sole care-givers to their elderly mothers. So, with two elderly moms in the house, lockdown and a night curfew, and all the fears that an anxious post-Corona mind can think of made me weave my own story when I received the message. I was convinced that one of the Moms was unwell and that her husband must be busy sorting some related issue and she needs to pay a vendor who at that hour can only be paid through Google Pay. The entire narrative was crystal clear and not in my wildest dreams did the thought cross that all this could be a fraud taking place. I did ask some relevant question about Google Pay and NEFT and then I made a call, unfortunately on WhatsApp. Since the WhatsApp was hacked, the hacker disconnected the phone, further confirming my story that something really wrong has happened and I must help.That’s what I did, I transferred Rs 4000 to a hacker thinking I was transferring it to my friend. And just as I finished the transaction, I got a message from her husband that her phone has been hacked. The face-palm emoji was hovering all around me but the deed was done.

What followed is what always happens post any accident, incident etc. Analyses, hind-sight, expert comments, advice, etc. Post the message about hacking, I called my friend’s husband and told him how I had already paid the money. Exasperated (since he had already been dealing with his wife’s hacked phone), he said, “But why would I ask you for Rs 4000? If I had to, I would have asked for more.” In my head, however, a voice prompted, “Because you know that I could give only 4000. For anything more, I am not the person to call.” Other friends in the closed group drew my attention to the English used. Some said, why would she ask for money on a group? I had answers for all as my story in my head was so convincing that stopping short of picking my car and going to their house I had imagined all possible support to offer them.

The next two days went in complaints to the bank and to the Cyber Cell. I wasn’t sure if I would get my money back. I was also relieved that it was only Rs 4000. However, I was intrigued at myself. So many people got the message, but I was the only one who took the bait. Why?  I guess I operated on trust. And in fact, something more than trust—the call of reason that should have made me call her husband when supposedly she cut the phone, or made me at least wait for a few more minutes, was totally overtaken by my imaginative fear that something was wrong. Do we all go through this when reason succumbs to fears? All the friends in the group laughed, conferring on me the status of the ultimate friend. I was told no one can come close to me in this one. I, on the other hand, was not so sure. I felt really childlike naïve and very foolish to have succumbed to such a thing when all around us there is news of how people get duped.

The ultimate validation to the whole thing (of being foolish and of being a great friend) came from the policeman who attended to my complaint. He called and asked me what happened. When I narrated the whole incident, his first point was, “Madam, itna padhe likhe hone ka kya fayda”(Madam, what is the use of being so educated?). I responded promptly saying how would I know that it is not my friend, what if she was in a genuine need? His next response hit the nail on the head, “Waise madam, isme koi shak nahi, bhagwan sab ko aapke jaise dost de. Par ye batao, itni jaldi emotional hone ki kya zaroorat thi aapko? Thoda pani peete, sochte, phone milate fir paise bhejte…”(There is no doubt, madam, that God should give everyone a friend like you. But why did you get emotional so quickly? You should have had a glass of water, thought a bit, made a call or two and then transferred money).

Probably in his Haryanvi accent he gave me a lesson for life, or food for thought. Making me realise that even when displaying empathy, one foot needs to be grounded in reason. Or that fear always gets the better of reason and one needs to be careful of that.

I got temporary credit from my bank for the amount I had transferred and the police told me no point trying to waste time on the hacker, just be careful next time. It indeed was an interesting and philosophical week. So much so that I needed a break after all this. I packed all my art material and came to my mother’s house along with my sister. Meeting my parents after 4 months of lockdown was definitely a balm and a much-needed break from the action back home.

©Shubhra

#7  July 17th, 2020

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

Cohabiting

#MyThursdayThing

After 5 weeks of regular writing I missed #mythursdaything, last week. When I set out on this Thursday commitment, I knew a gap would come once in a while. But it came sooner than I expected. Let me start by saying to those who were waiting for it: I am sorry. However, the good news is that it wasn’t laziness that led to the break in momentum. I had a valid reason, which was that I got stung on my leg by a wasp. It was so bad and painful that for 3 days I was completely down. The sting was so strong that it led to mild fever and the anti-allergy tablets led to drowsiness. The result—I wasn’t able to write or paint or do anything much.

My house has balconies on three sides and come spring time, wasps and honey bees all start hovering around and building their hives. While the honey bees like the plants, which I have in plenty and look for the back of the leaves to start building from, the wasps go into the funniest of corners. I found them inside the AC, and inside the cooler’s water tank. Then once I found them in a wire opening in the roof of the room. I even found them in the side gaps of the balcony door. They are on all sides of the house and in all corners.  They just fly in and out of the house as if they own it. 

Earlier we would use the mosquito racquet to stun these wasps unconscious and throw them outside. Then I realised it was not appropriate and stopped attacking them. We made peace with their existence. We would just try and stay away from their way and if they came in our way we would use a broom or a newspaper to show them the door.

The honey bees, on the other hand, did not disturb us at all, barring making their hives on our plants and attacking if we tried to water them. Largely, though, I found my way around it by avoiding hitting their homes directly with the spray and sneakily water the pot.

All was okay till the wasps made their hive in my studio and the honey bees chose the lemon plant in my balcony where I sit and meditate and sometimes have my evening tea. Whenever in the morning I would take my seat, the honeybees would start hovering around. They were scared and disturbed by me and I was scared and disturbed by them. Cutting the leaves, shifting the plant, shifting my seat—I tried everything and then gave up. I mentioned this incident to my friend, telling him how I behaved like a real estate person by displacing the bees and breaking their dwelling. He mentioned how I am missing the opportunity to get organic honey by doing so. Honey or not, I just wanted my plants and balcony to be accessible to me. The dilemma was sorted when one day a monkey came to the scene and then when he was bitten by the bees, in his pain and anger he broke a couple of pots and also destroyed the hive. No honey bees since then.

No such luck with the wasps, however. I had to remove the hive from my studio and a few more corners and I am sure they did not like it… I let the ones away from me be—don’t come in my way and I won’t come in yours. But is life that simple? One evening last week, I was watering my plants. It was beginning to get dark and I was also on a video call with my friend who had just bought her first ever car. Suddenly around the same lemon plant, I felt a prick on my leg. I jumped a bit and shirked it away mistaking it as a thorn from the lemon plant. Little did I know that I had been stung by a wasp. I totally ignored the sting on day 1. I did not rub the area with iron (they say it helps remove the sting). I did not have an anti-allergy either. Next morning, I went for a walk and put my poor legs to some 8 kms of exercise only to come home in a lot of agony. I took a look at my leg—ugly, red and swollen. I knew the wasp had had its revenge for the hive that I had removed from my studio. Rest is history. It took 3 days of ointments and anti-allergy medicines to get back to normal.

The thought that this episode left me with was, who was in the right? The honey bees making their hive just on that very spot where I sit or the wasps making their hive right inside my studio? Or me trying to protect myself and my sister from their stings and all the pain. Who has the first right over these places?

In our homes, in the cities, in our villages, the fight is always around this. Who has the first right over the land, the resources etc. In the forests however, everyone exists together, they cohabit and the food chain also works in harmony. In our cities and homes however, both of us are in unnatural surroundings—the bees and us. And so we fight for the survival and our right to passage.

Currently in our home, all places outdoor are doubly checked before we stand or lean over them or water plants to avoid any more stings. Inside the house, however, we are still stuck with the question, To bee or not to bee?

©Shubhra
#6  July 9th, 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.

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.