So I said, "Okay! You can have my studio! You are my best creation!" And with that I handed over the keys to my Barsati Studio in Defense Colony to my daughter who was going to leap from New York to New Delhi with a sudden change of jobs.
It was my last day there. I had already moved most of my paints, paper, scissors, stuff. I went over and mounted the high staircase, up and up, past the doctor's clinic, past another door, past the generator and the invertor, past the French Girl who lives on the First floor and then to my room with the Ferlinghetti Poem number something something about "...a Van Gogh sky...I dip my paintbrush..." scribbled on the door, slid the bolt back and was in there again, a quiet, square room with windows all around.
I opened them all, french doors, windows and a breeze blew in as I sat on the moodha in the middle, a slightly rickety Buddha of a woman. And then that wind, it became a flash of twisting lightning all around and the rain came down in sudden torrents and a comic bubble came up over my head, and the arrow pointed to my mouth and I said,
"BARSATI!" Loud and clear it came out of my mouth, the word.
Beautiful and apt.
A perfect farewell to a place I loved and made some of my best pictures in.
A square little room with a large and empty terrace which I preferred to keep that way. Little peepul trees grew in a few crannies and I left them there, for soon I knew the house would be torn down when my landlady, Aunty S would no longer be here on Earth to sip a glass of sweet sherry with me in the evening, in her little television room downstairs by the tiny green garden filled with bouganvilla. I sat there often, chatting amiably with her when I had to wait to be picked up and go home in the evenings. I always introduced myself to her older friends as, "Aunty S's 'kotheh walli!" Which made them laugh, with a little shock and glee!
I had lucked out with this space. When I returned to India in 2004, I realized I would need a separate studio space when the battery of staff at the old family bungalow made it clear that lettuce seeds, electric bulbs, grocery lists were a thing of every moment as far as their time to communicate with the Lady of The House was concerned. So when I asked my friend from High School, who deals in property deals, he said he'd keep a look out for me, but difficult now that Barsatis are a thing of the past. But sudden luck when another school friend called him up and said that, due to the scandals around their renter and his too young fiance, he was moving out of the city and the room was free again...he barely put the phone down, when he remembered my request and so I found myself mounting those high stairs that April morning. When I saw the space, it was so perfect, so sweet, so like a gift up in heaven...like a kabadi player before he enters the field, I bent down, touched the threshold, and raised my fingers to my forehead...blessed!
I have always been lucky with finding a perfect parking space, and this time was no exception.
Now my daughter is there, enjoying her brief time in heaven on earth because Aunty S just passed away, and the clock now ticks faster.
It was my last day there. I had already moved most of my paints, paper, scissors, stuff. I went over and mounted the high staircase, up and up, past the doctor's clinic, past another door, past the generator and the invertor, past the French Girl who lives on the First floor and then to my room with the Ferlinghetti Poem number something something about "...a Van Gogh sky...I dip my paintbrush..." scribbled on the door, slid the bolt back and was in there again, a quiet, square room with windows all around.
I opened them all, french doors, windows and a breeze blew in as I sat on the moodha in the middle, a slightly rickety Buddha of a woman. And then that wind, it became a flash of twisting lightning all around and the rain came down in sudden torrents and a comic bubble came up over my head, and the arrow pointed to my mouth and I said,
"BARSATI!" Loud and clear it came out of my mouth, the word.
Beautiful and apt.
A perfect farewell to a place I loved and made some of my best pictures in.
A square little room with a large and empty terrace which I preferred to keep that way. Little peepul trees grew in a few crannies and I left them there, for soon I knew the house would be torn down when my landlady, Aunty S would no longer be here on Earth to sip a glass of sweet sherry with me in the evening, in her little television room downstairs by the tiny green garden filled with bouganvilla. I sat there often, chatting amiably with her when I had to wait to be picked up and go home in the evenings. I always introduced myself to her older friends as, "Aunty S's 'kotheh walli!" Which made them laugh, with a little shock and glee!
I had lucked out with this space. When I returned to India in 2004, I realized I would need a separate studio space when the battery of staff at the old family bungalow made it clear that lettuce seeds, electric bulbs, grocery lists were a thing of every moment as far as their time to communicate with the Lady of The House was concerned. So when I asked my friend from High School, who deals in property deals, he said he'd keep a look out for me, but difficult now that Barsatis are a thing of the past. But sudden luck when another school friend called him up and said that, due to the scandals around their renter and his too young fiance, he was moving out of the city and the room was free again...he barely put the phone down, when he remembered my request and so I found myself mounting those high stairs that April morning. When I saw the space, it was so perfect, so sweet, so like a gift up in heaven...like a kabadi player before he enters the field, I bent down, touched the threshold, and raised my fingers to my forehead...blessed!
I have always been lucky with finding a perfect parking space, and this time was no exception.
Now my daughter is there, enjoying her brief time in heaven on earth because Aunty S just passed away, and the clock now ticks faster.
