Retrospecting ...
| In the silence of the night when I take a break
from my work and sit alone in the balcony, I see a young boy walking along
the footpath at Park Street, towards the bank at Outram Ghat or sitting
at the Howrah or Sealdah stations. He always has a bag on his shoulder
and a drawing board in his hand.
Black clouds cover the sky while people take shelter from the rain, but the boy sits on the steps of the monument under an open sky - and the rain pours. The streets are full of crowds and everyone is running. He does not know for what? He is sitting on the huge iron pipes at Metro Railways, placed on the mud hills on the sides of Park Street. He sits for hours - from evening to midnight - with no one to ask for any explanation! Freedom? Maybe that is what makes him move from the roof of the New Market to a place under the Howrah Bridge; a feeling, which he cannot explain but which makes him wander and sketch even late into the Durga Puja evenings. He has a desire to sleep in the Curzon Park, an eagerness to stand apart from the crowd, to be involved with colour and brush, an interest to see people with their peculiarities. He even has a pain for ruined houses, the whisper of their doors and windows. These keep taking this boy away from himeslf towards an unknown world. He is walking in the silence of the night with his bag on his shoulder and a board in his hand, he goes far and fades away. The fire of the cigarette touches my finger and shakes me. I put it off and stop retrospecting. I make believe that I am still that young boy painting innocently. I sit silently as the chowkidar hits his iron rod on the street-thud-thud-thud. I sit before my blank canvas and go ahead with my work.
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© Arts Indian Atelier 1999-2000