FINDING WORDS TO PAINT

It was soon that I realized that I would be here to witness all that was to take place, but I was not clear as to what was the course things would take in the next few hours. How could Luke even think that this semi conscious tatterdemalion whom I could hardly capture in my frame because of his dwindling legs, could help him achieve what he could not after years of patience and practice. But now Luke that given up the idea that art like any form of mechanical activity would by practice and default be a part of the muscle memory. This belief of which Luke’s mind was the creator had made him redraw sketches of curvy bodies, messy lines and unknown self imagined shapes and structures using all means that had made him a skilled ‘copy artist’. I remember the day Luke had bartered his last piece of anything that could be called living room furniture for a old coffee table from the son of the old lady, who was about to take it away when his mother died. And all Luke could think of doing with it was to use it as a support to illuminate the sketches over a 50 watt bulb and then draw random lines over the tracing paper. Well that was the reason he got it, and it should not have been difficult for me to realize that; I mean, what Luke has done for any one (including himself) since the time I have seen him, the answer to that one is, nothing. The only thing that he did for me was that he got me, atleast I have someone to see now, though Luke has no one, not even himself.
It was only a few days back that Luke who stood for his ideology felt weak in his knees and bowed down to accept that art was for the gifted, and the bitter truth was that Luke could not acquire that gift even through his days of incessant rehearsing. Luke had a vision, but I guess he had seen it through a pipe, because the vision was like the end of the pipe, lit up and clear; but the path to the vision was dark like the darkness that prevails throughout the length of the pipe. In fact Luke’s vision had always been a never ending story to me, because he said it in that manner. If he were to ask me I would have told him he was better off being a story teller than being a visionary painter.
After Luke’s life had been partially shattered by the newly dawned realization of not being gifted he had resorted to this means to fulfill his unachievable dream or in his words vision. So that was of Luke, but of this intoxicated man with impaired abilities to move around, I knew nothing. Luke said he had spotted him on the lane next to the museum painting the emaciated kids of the nearby slums for the too fair or the too dark foreigners. The next day Luke had seen him looking at the wrinkled face of an old Gorkha to capture him on his canvas, and it was then that Luke made up his mind that he would be the vehicle for him to achieve his visionary art. I am sure not only me but even Luke did not know his name, he had been referring to him as Painter Babu for the past few hours and as usual narrating his art in words to the walls and of course me (‘cause Mr. Painter Babu had been snoring his lungs out for quite some time now).
Luke had known that the world was full of stories to be told and there were people waiting to hear them, but for him the medium was canvas and colours. No one knew why Luke felt that way, not even him; but for him it was his instinct that was driving him. So he set off on his task the next morning, but the man of action here still had his lids closed. Luke jotted down random notes on the other side of the tracing paper that he had used to draw his worthless sketches, and this all was done in low tones so as to not disturb painter Babu (after all his artistic mind had to be out of his previous night’s hangover - stiff and stimulating , ready to take on Luke’s mission).
So Luke sat down to scribble random notes on the pieces of paper that he could find, it was miraculous how he had got over his habit of writing on any solid thing that could support graphite or for that matter even charcoal marks on its surface. After days of practicing and rehearsing, his ideas were taking the form and colour of a painting and Luke was finding it difficult to roll out alphabets on paper, but ‘gift’ is what I call it was. Luke and his words flowed driving out all that was captured in the spaces if his mind into alphabets, words, sentences and a story – a work. He wrote of heavens, celestial life and the hymn of the earth as it revolves around its lover the sun, trying to have every glimpse of him all the time. Through all the changing seasons every part if earth yearns to see the sun again, to feel its warmth on it. Tries all means to get close to it, but the sun burning in its pride of being the provider, the keeper of life makes it impossible for any love to even come near. The earth fearing the rage of the mighty sun and the will of its lover restricts itself on its orbit revolving around to stay not very close but in proximity. But the sun unwilling to accept its love for the earth resorts to harsh means to keep the earth off. The winds, the water, the ice, and the heat all are the weapons that the sun uses, but love knows perseverance and the earth survives all this. The sun has to accept to himself that all this was nothing but retaliation to his fear of the amorphous, his unwillingness to fall prey to his inner softer core. The sun chooses his newly found love. But for their unification the sun has to give up what he is. His self is a threat to the existence of his lover if they would unite. But love demands no change and no returns; it curls back inside itself and feels warm only in it being there. And so the sun denouncing unification gives a part of itself to its lover (a part that we today know as the moon), a part that till today revolves around the earth and romances with the earth when the sun sets for the day.
So the day starts with a spill for everyone, for Luke it is the spill of brimming ideas and words and for Painter Babu it is the spill of water onto the ground. The prodigy (Luke thought of him to be one) had announced his awakening and with sun light striking his eyes Luke’s eyes lit up, and lit up with the fire of that passion that he saw soon being sufficed. Luke never ran short of words to explain what he thought he was destined to do, but Painter Babu seemed not to have the inner eyes of a visionary artist and got caught up in Luke’s words and then the entangled Painter Babu turned to a clueless victim (which he thought he was, to Luke’s strange idea of getting people to paint his words).
“Ok” said Luke, assuming that the ground rules of the game had been laid; “this is what you need to paint” handing Painter Babu what he had been doodling on the paper forasmuch as the whole morning. I was taken aback that the poor bum could read Luke’s cacography. Luke’s expressions were continuously changing, just like the clouds change shape on a rainy day, but Painter Babu seemed to be consistent with his expression of bewilderment. But the tonic to ease this discomfort in Painter Babu was known; all that Luke had to do was to show him green, the colour of hope for Luke and the colour and smell of money Painter Babu.
Luke’s dream was shaping up on canvas and colours today, words were being translated to brush strokes and fine layers of shades. But the essence of a book is often lost in translation, similarly the sentiments woven by Luke in his words failed to show up in the dimension of the story that Painter Babu had drawn. Time is what Luke assumed he needed and so he locked himself up in another room for a few hours, this too did no good. I had never seen Luke be so patient with any one from the newspaper boy to his cook and to me too (his self bought companion for almost three years now); staying with an erratic soul like Luke had its own perils.
The final product showcased by Painter Babu was highly disappointing, not only for Luke but for me too (or maybe I saw the painting thorough Luke’s eyes, I had seen them enough in myself for years now). Luke could only stare at the painting and try to comprehend what he had to do about it; after all, he had to word the reason of his appointment to the creator. But the painting looked more like a half ignored Solar system with Earth seeming to be the center of it and the planets and the Sun (at one corner) looking at the bluish green persona. It had altered the basic laws of the universe alignment, leave aside Luke’s imagination. It was more like a curtailed image from a geography text with the latter half of the solar system missing.
But Luke did not give up, this was his only hope and the last form of any resort that he had. And so Painter Babu was requested to try his hand again on another canvas in the hope of a masterpiece translated from word to paint. Luke this time thought of writing about a few more things so that the artist had options to pick from. So he created what he was best at, for Luke mastery came in with no effort, but the realization of mastery was needed, for which Luke had never cared or given even the slightest of attention. But after repeated intervals of defeat from Painter Babu’s unmatched idea perception, Luke was giving away. He was losing his ability to explain (which for the first time I witnessed him have) and moreover it was hampering him from writing. Luke was struggling to write now, what he was trying to do is manipulate his vision into something that Painter Babu could see and incorporate into a painting. Was Luke even realizing what this was doing to him? I could see it, and I wished that Luke saw it too.
It was only when Luke got back to explain what he had written to Painter Babu did this strike him, it hit him that what he had written for the canvas and what he actually felt were not the same. He had manipulated his thoughts for some one else's understanding. It pierced him sharp and he dropped his pen down, let the ink flow onto the floor and spread like a thin smear on the evenly laid floor, and then it stopped drifting. Now Luke could breathe this split ink and he knew he had let the writer in him flow, and most of all he could see it right in front of him. His Gift was smeared on the floor and was calling out to be rescued.
It’s not important to know what Luke did with the split ink or the half written manipulated verses meant for Painter Babu. But what I saw in Luke eyes that day was a not only a realization, but also an appreciation and admiration of the fact that his gift would now be translated into words by him. And about me; Luke left me in the same place and moved on. And now I see someone else in me, someone not ready to see himself, so let the journey of the gifted one begin from looking into me…

GUESS MY AGE...

Coming from a girl you might expect anything under such a header to be a set of consolidated beauty tips or another ‘look young’ or ‘hide those age lines’ kind of an excerpt. A few on the contrary would anticipate that the lines to follow will have harsh criticisms of the obsession women have with everlasting youth. But quite differently this ain’t about any of the above, in the age of metro sexuality redefined, femininity is often underlined.
What happens when someone, needless to say a guy (in the present context and for all further addressing) says something as bizarre as "this might seem funny to you, but it just crossed my mind to ask you this – what must be my age?" Ah…not forgetting to mention the line that follows, so he says – "the first thing that comes to your mind, just a figure first; we’ll come to the reasons later". With my eyes stuck on him, like his nose seemed to have been stuck on to his properly rolled on face, I uttered 25. A few more numbers (pretty random though) were heard. This was the easier part of the session, now was act 1, scene 2… (Now that you have been through with the guess my age thing, lets take this a step further – the why part of the question).
Setting – a conference room with a round table around which 6 chairs have been placed. 4 chairs towards one end of the room have been occupied by girls who look eager and ready to understand the situation that is going to be posed in front of them. The other end has a young girl making notes of the conversation yet to start and collecting and filing papers from the rest of the girls. Besides her is an odd man out.
The four of girls give their respective reasons...
The answers given have been omitted because of their irrelevance (to the guy off course).
Now, Act 1 scene 3… (Tell me your age)
Guy –ok, none of you are even close (maintaining the suspense).so tell me how old are you? Clockwise starting from you.
Girl 1 – 23
Girl 2 – 23
Girl 3 – 25
Girl 4 – 25
Guy – (after having carefully jotted down the numbers from top to bottom, aligning them one under the other and restricting them sideways by two vertical lines) I am exactly in between the four of you.
The curtain falls.
(Sorry to have disappointed you with this abrupt end of the play but this was only an insight into the ‘Guess my age’ syndrome. The further plays [yet to come] highlight a few more symptoms of the above).
After the whole thing concluded whatever had been his last statement to the conversation I do not remember, but the line that he actually wanted to word (his heart might be softly uttering out to his young looking ego) – and you gals always thought that age miracles only happen with women…haha. But he was not the only one who had not spoken his heart out, there was me too, and all I would have wanted to say is that – "dear Edward, in today’s era of twilight preceding the new moon and vampires being the heart throb of millions, you too could be one of them…the cold storage vampires 100 yrs old still managing to look 24."
Now that I have come to believe very closely in the six degrees of separation concept I’m going to set out these lines in the form of a letter hoping that the message is conveyed, but I’m still not sure that people who suffer from the ‘Guess my age’ syndrome understand its symptoms…