half drawn faces...

I gritted my teeth, and shielded myself against the cold, my fingers too numb to work anymore. Tears poured from my eyes as perhaps blood would from an open wound…yet blood flows for a reason. I shut my eyes tight, drew my legs against my chest, my chin resting on my knees and I rocked myself… softly to and fro, almost dreading the moment when long forgotten, dreaded memories would return to haunt me again. It was time they would arrive… the painting is finished… ready to be framed…and I kept softly rocking to and fro… that’s what ma did when I was young…

The wind shall whisper for you my child… and soothe you when distressed…your tears will cool their warmth when the breeze blows softly against your cheek…

Softly rocking to and fro…to and fro… I did not want to plunge into the depths of despair again… I did not want to feel its icy-cold grip on my neck… rocking to and fro still…
Ma… she’d hold me warm against her and pat so softly on my back…

The wind shall whisper for you my child…she whispered.

And then the silence was shattered by another voice…

Worthless creature he hissed…my child…he spat…to be a painter?! Never…never…

And I rocked on…my pale red shawl now turned crimson…a steady drip drip changed its hue…

Let her be what she wants to... she pleaded for me.

I wanted to paint…perhaps to escape the reality of this drab existence…to paint my canvas the way I could never colour life… I would paint skies of azure… golden eyes… winding lanes going nowhere… a lady’s face half sketched…

Never! She’d be a doctor… she’d be my dream… I have so many dreams yet to fulfill…he had shouted.

My faces are still obscure… despondent eyes…half drawn… masked faces… lurid lips…

Throw that cursed easel into the fire… and he destroyed my brushes that day.

Softly rocking to and fro…

The room seemed to have shrunk around me…stifling me… the single window still wide open…there I keep my colours, beside the window… my easel and a painting yet not dry.


I remained sitting there for a long time…and then I heard my labored breathing ease… and a sliver of light crossed the room… I stopped rocking then… and reached out towards my painting… a part of my soul encased in its layered colours… black…grey…blue…

Morning brought with it a fresh wave of sanity… panic and despair seemed to have disappeared with the stars that have always been deceptive to me… stars that misled… I wrapped the painting in crisp new paper and ready it stood to be framed.

I was free now… at least until I finished another piece… I knew that this depression would return in an even more appalling form next time… it happened every time I finished a painting…as soon as I rested my brush… as soon as there remained no more strokes I could confer upon my canvas…

Reminiscences, a little nostalgia and some incoherent babbling.

Last week was Saraswati Puja. There was this unmistakable heady scent of ‘kuls’ in the air, and everything wore a paint of yellow- bringing back memories of all those days spent here, all those Saraswati Pujas we always looked forward to…the paper chains to be made, the goddess to be adorned… the ‘alpana’ to be made without any delay…

I have grown up in this four-storied building with about five or six people roughly the same age as mine. Every evening, we would descend to the basement and play. Be it basketball, badminton or even carom- play we must. The walls would echo our laughter, and there was so much of sunshine in our lives! Every occasion was looked forward to, and every little thing made us happy… we gave roses on ‘Rose Day’, painstakingly made friendships bands for each other along with hand painted cards… little tokens of appreciation and love. Picnic would be one of those halcyon days… we would be up before the sun itself, filled with energy as we pushed our heads up sweaters too tight for us and wore sneakers caked with dirt. Who cared? All we wanted was fun.
There came a bus and we poured in, trying to get a seat near the hallowed ones:
All ‘DADAS’ and ‘DIDIS’.

The little attention they bestowed on us would send us into spasms of delight. And why not? After all, we were six school-goers, hardly qualifying as teenagers while they were all college-goers then. They were the ‘cool’ people. Besides we wanted to spy on them, and find out who was dating whom. Theirs was a larger group- about six boys and seven girls in all.

Impromptu feasts would keep taking place throughout the year without rhyme or reason, and enjoyed immensely! We were infamous for having weird games up our sleeve for every occasion. Be it a game called ‘lalure’ (something we made up ourselves, and I would rather not burden you with its details), or dumb-charades (where we ended up talking, coughing, spluttering and what not)

Today almost nothing remains. All the didis are married, and have left the city… all dadas too busy with their office work to even care about petty things like feasts… and even our group has scattered. Some gone to different engineering colleges, some busy preparing for their board exams. And others who do not care. Every year at least during the Durga Puja we try to interact… but something is still missing. These people have been able to break the bonds holding them back. I have not. There is no sense of security in the fact that I belong here. No one else does.

No longer can you see us midgets jumping up and down trying to retrieve the ball that got stuck in someone’s kitchen pipe. Or dipping our hands into a plateful of ‘biriyani’ during the feasts, to get the biggest piece of mutton… or perhaps the running wildly…freely… and hiding in the dirtiest corner ever, only to hear someone call “I spy!”

I miss those days. I miss my friends. I miss laughing my head off at stupid jokes. I miss those evenings when we were made to clean up the basement walls (as we had scribbled on them- a prank)… hauling buckets of water and splashing them on the walls...
I miss the warmth that this building lent me once; it was a cocoon, a shelter for us all…
How I wish I could go back five years and relive those days again!

I am an emotional dork.