By Haimanti Dutta Ray
The painting caught everyone’s eyes immediately. The gallery had almost choc-a-bloc viewers. The owner of the gallery, hadn’t expected such a turn-out on the opening day. There were even a few people standing at the entrance, queueing up in order to gain admittance. The exhibition was the result of a sit-and-draw competition. The organizers had advertised in almost all the dailies of the city. They had provided a theme and the participants were requested to arrive at the given venue with their own materials – canvases or papers, tubes of color paints and brushes or crayons.
The theme for the event had been: The Feeling of Love. Trained as well as untrained artists had come to the venue at the given time, armed with all their armory of colors and tools to implement their ideas.
Deepti is a girl of eighteen. Still a teenager and in her adolescent years, she is undecided as to which subject she’ll select for her bachelor studies in a college. She paints excellently. Her parents are very proud of their only daughter’s creativity.
“Oh! Ma, can I?”
She points to the advertisement in the paper which held her attention.
“Oh dear! Of course.”
So on Sunday morning, armed with a small canvas, a few tubes of paint – colors which were her special favorites like red, indigo, burnt sienna, green – and a couple of paint brushes that she’d received on her last birthday, she arrives at the venue, bubbling with anticipation and excitement. Whenever she held her brushes, the sudden joy of being able to express her feelings in vivid colors, gave her a joy which made her smile even on a grim and dreary day. She felt free as a bird! She let her colors do all the talking for the moment.
“What does the theme connote? Is the feeling of love meant for only physical love? Can’t the love between friends also be expressed here?”
Deepti gets into doldrums as she sits, biting the ends of her paintbrush. Gradually, a beatific smile appears on her lips. The grin and smile are so noticeable that the other participants, gathered there, all turn to face her.
Of Course!
She’ll paint a Mother and Child. Maternal love is the only one of its kind which is universal and unalloyed. She may not be able to capture the charm of a Monet or a Picasso or even for that matter, a Jamini Roy. Because she lacks the experience and the expertise.
With a manic frenzy, she begins her work upon the blank canvas. Her brushstrokes move like one who is possessed and also one who has a certain goal in front of her. She just has to depict what is slowly taking shape and form within her mind. Tagore’s song Ekla Chalo Re, the same song which is believed to have brought tears into the Mahatma’s eyes, is Deepti’s favorite motivational composition. She begins humming the tune, as she busily applied strokes of her brushes and color paints. Even though celebrations of Valentine’s Day are going on in full swing in almost every corner of the city, Deepti, true to her name, paints a canvas that radiates with the feeling of love and affection to such an extent that she does not look back on her creation, after she provides her finishing touches to the work.
"It’s so very, very beautiful.”
One of the organizers, a lady - as charming and graceful as her own mother thought Deepti - exclaims upon viewing her painting. Deepti’s painting depicts a new born child in the lap of the mother.
As the grand inauguration day for the exhibition approaches, Deepti conveys her feeling of anxiety to her mother, Sayanika.
“Ma, they’ve liked my work. But as this is my first public exposure, I’m getting nervous.”
“Surely…. I think you’re getting tensed a bit unnecessarily.”
Her mother replies back.
But a very big surprise lay in wait for Deepti on the opening day…
The space where her painting, which Deepti called “First Love” – a bit off handedly – was to be hung, lay bare. Instead of the painting itself, her own name in bold letters, hung on the wall from a screw soldered to the wall of the gallery.
“Don’t you know, Deepti? I thought you knew about this piece of grand news…?”
The Head of the organizing committee smiles at the staring faces of Deepti and her parents.
“We conducted a symposium with some eminent artists and committees of the state. Mr. De, who selects works for display at their Fine Arts Museum, was so happy to see your work that he purchased it at a very good price.”
“My work is SOLD?”
This is something to come out of the blue, all of a sudden for this little girl. She hardly expected something like this to happen in her life. After all, this is the first public display of her creative talent.
Deepti is reminded of the immortal lines from the Shakespearean sonnet, “Love’s not love which alters when its alteration finds.” She stands speechless and stares at the wall where her name is written in bold letters.
By Haimanti Dutta Ray
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