#5 Dear Me: Where I Question Life, Thank Virginia Woolf and Comfort Vincent Van Gogh

Dear Life,

I remember images. They stay with me. I have never been able to remember things for example, where I kept my glasses before hitting the bed or where I put down the book I was reading last. But, I can recall suddenly vivid images of places, moments, people... and they may not be great bookmarks in my life. Yet, I remember them clearly,

So, a few days back, I had this flash from the past. I remembered one afternoon in college. There was sunlight streaming through the windows. I saw myself sitting in a feminist haze of golden yellow that made everything around me opaque. I was sitting somewhere in the middle of a class full of students - I knew they were there though I never saw them in my flash of memory. But, I saw our petite and beautiful professor quoting Virginia Woolf to explain 'Stream of Consciousness':

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”

I was really impressed by the quote. To me with my perpetually hazy and myopic vision it may have hit a bullseye on my young and impressionable self. Who knows? Perhaps that is the reason why I suddenly remembered that day.

This quasi-opaque luminous halo has been chasing me around like a mist for a very long time. Some call me a dreamer, others perhaps worse. But, that has not changed a single thing for me.

Thanks to Ms Woolf, I always knew subconsciously that life would not be a straight and narrow path. She had indeed promised that life would be an adventure and I saw myself riding the rough waves and winning. It pleased my young self a lot.

It's therefore not strange that I remember that day and those non-descriptive yellow walls of the lecture theatre with such clarity.

In the years since, I've had my slips and victories and falls but, have pushed ahead and enjoyed the ride all through.

Dear life, today I suddenly wanted to thank Ms Woolf for that quote. Maybe she can read this post in her afterlife or maybe it will be conveyed to her by the universe in general. I have hope that after today, she will know.

Life is definitely unplannable. It cannot be put into neat little compartments to be opened at will or left to be incubated for the right time to hatch. Hell! I can't even hatch a plot by plotting it when I write a story! It just happens and so does life.

The other day I chanced upon an information so astounding that I was blown away. It seems that the Impressionist movement was spearheaded by artists who were actually myopic. The great French masters like Monet, Renoir and Degas, suffered from shortsightedness and thus drew from their - you got it right - impressions. Had they planned it, it could not have worked any better.

For once I was so glad to be a myopic since childhood. No wonder ma says I cannot smell danger even when it is staring me in the eye. I only see the deep green haze of jealousy, the red of anger and myriad other colours that all look so vivid to me.

I love colours. They fascinate me. That make me happy hence, I ignore all other signals that wish to emit. No wonder I trip and fall so often, but, I hardly take my fall badly. It's all good. It's all experience.

However, I sometimes worry about Vincent Van Gogh. His was the most beautiful mind that saw colours and patterns in everything around him. Yet it took a couple of generations to figure it out.

I wish I could also find him somewhere and tell him not to despair. I see his despair in his art - even in his most celebrated works. The decaying flowers, the scavenger crows circling ripe and harvested fields, the barrenness of the vistas, the gnarling of the branches, the claustrophobia that I can smell from his painting of his bedroom. I just want to shake his hands once and quote Ms Woolf to him.

I just want him to be happy. Wherever he is. Because despite his towering talent, he did not have my indomitable spirit thanks to Ms Woolfe's quote.

And here is what I worry about, dear life, that despite the spirit, there is a vital flaw in my thinking. It is self-criticism. I am always criticising the last thing I have created. I can never be happy with the end result of anything I have finished working on. I hate it when someone says they have read or seen my writing. I believe they are all making it up to make me happy.

I wonder at times if it is a big flaw or a small one. I wish someone could answer the question honestly.

I am my fiercest critic. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Should I not be proud and self-promotional in my attitude?

As an artist, I cannot be untrue to myself. My inner artist has very lofty tastes. It refuses to settle for anything less. It insists that I look at myself and rediscover, recreate and rework everything I make from food to hanging up a print on the wall.

It keeps searching for that elusive state called perfection that is practically impossible to achieve. Or is it? Because, it keeps telling me that it is possible.

I await your answer.

Get back to me soon.

Love,

Shoma

#4 Dear me! Letters to Myself: Happy Thanksgiving

 

Dear life,

Everyone's happy today in the US and eating Turkey dinners. Their outgoing President even pardoned a turkey and spared its life. How magnanimous!

You know how I love festivals and so, I thought of you and the journey of my life so far.

The long list of happy memories far outweighed the list of things that went wrong like, the time when as a teenager I and my cousin ended up watching a wrong movie at the theatre because we were too shy to ask for a ticket for the movie of our choice. Instead, we asked for 'a ticket' for the next show - which we were told was about to start. We never questioned what was playing assuming it was the new Amir Khan film because there were enough posters around us saying so.

I still remember waiting patiently thinking that the English film, Conan the Barbarian, was just a long-ish trailer and the Juhi Chawla film, Goonj, will start any moment. It didn't help that the morning show didn't have any interval.

We almost cried when 'The End' loomed up dashing all our hopes of redemption. Oh! The follies of innocence and youth.

I have till date not watched the movie in deference to the teenaged me who didn't have the money to watch it in the next show!

Anyhow, today is not about losses. Today is about gains. And though we may not get to eat a turkey tonight - it doesn't matter. I am still happy because I can count my blessings with you.

So, without further ado here is the list:

1) My Family - for their love, kindness and unconditional support - that was a no-brainer!
2) My Friends - for their patience and positivity - I am very poor at keeping in touch :(
3) My Teachers - for believing in me and nurturing my ambitions
4) Children - for sharing their unconditional love - especially three little girls I'll always remember
5) Books - for being the best medicine for every ailment I've had
6) Films - for eliminating boredom and keeping hope alive
7) Travel - for killing the blight called monotony, the bane of my existence
8) Star Trek - for making me believe in science
9) Harry Potter and JK Rawlings - for making me believe in magic
10) Rains - for making me believe in miracles
11) Ice Cream - for making me believe that cold is better than bearable
12) Sea - for turning me into a believer
13) Shakespeare - for just-in-time philosophy
14) Hand Creams - for helping cope with dry air conditioned offices
15) Table Lamps and Cushion Covers - for instantly refreshing home decor
16) Van Gogh - for filling me with curiosity and a different perspective
17) Tintin - for being an amazing role model
18) Cars - for making me self-reliant
19) Delhi - for making me curious about History
20) Bombay - for making me trust again

That was not a huge list but, writing it up made me smile from inside out. Happiness is not a thing that you can buy at the grocery store or a mall but, a feeling that stays in your heart pumping blood into the brains. :D

I remember when I didn't have the money to buy a camera, I would simply capture frames with my eyes and string them into poems. It was such a beautiful way to capture memories and keep them alive!

Today when I look at this list, I know that each point has several layers and memories accumulated in it. If I was to elaborate each one, I can fill pages till I run out of space to write and you the patience to read. But, there is no need for that. You already know what I know.

Happy Thanksgiving dear life!

Love,

Shoma

Portrait of an Artist as God

Sometimes I think Van Gogh is a perfect role model though not many will agree with me. For me he was a hero. He did not deter from his own conviction that he was born to paint. Even when no one bought a single work, even when they threw him into an asylum and even when schizophrenia rocked his foundations. When angry at the world he cut off his own ear and when there was no one to paint, he painted himself.

He was a true artist. His works, considered worthless in his lifetime are worth gazailians today.

Art is not about how much money you make or fame you get in your lifetime. Art is an insatiable desire to outdo the conventional, to better nature and to be the owner and designer of a world that no one else may understand. In other words, an artist is a true blasphemist since he thinks he can better God's creation.

Art is not just painting a picture or making a sketch, writing poems, stories, creating a world on celluloid, dancing, singing, theater, lover of nature, photographer and even an animal trainer can be termed an artist if they are creating a different world, a microcosm that defies the norm.

Even those who cannot express their art by any known form are artists.

Have you seen housewives who want to keep changing the floorplans of their homes or children who try finding a new way everyday to get home from school. Boys who wants to dress differently or want to play musical instruments even at the cost of being laughed at by peers or girls who want to be known as badass and wear tattoos and leather jackets. They are artists at heart. Though they may not be as curious as a purist.

Anyone who wants to change the present order of things could be an artist. An artist could also be an anarchist, though it goes against the way an artists mind works. Rebellion occurs when the artist is pushed to a corner. Beware the artist scorned.

We may laugh at their discomfort in large crowds or their immensely shy nature or curse their wild ways and openly displayed disdain for all ideas conventional but, these are the artists. They are burning to change. They are dying to move the axis on which the Earth move. They are the real movers and shakers. Let them experiment because they will change the world.

Do not stop them because you do not understand their point-of-view or come in their way because you do not see the world as they see it.

Just let them be and soak up when the creativity flows.

Open your eyes let the energy flow. Maybe, you'll find an artist hidden in some corner of your own heart.

Van Gogh, The Ox Cart, July 1884. Oil on canvas

Rejection is Challenge

"This is good but, not the kind of work we are interested in. However, we'd like to thank you for trying and we wish you the best in your future endeavors."

Most of us crumple upon finding this two-liner in our mail. But, history is replete with stories of rejectors who have eaten many a humble pies.

Recently, a friend who is keen on writing, did not make it to the final list in a novel writing contest. She was so hurt that she quit creative writing for more than a month, engaging her efforts instead, on writing commissioned articles for magazines. This one is for her and for everyone who wants to throw a curve ball but is stopped because it does not fit in to the existing norms. Don't worry about being the square peg unable to fit into the round hole. Just don't try to fit in. There also exists a square hole made just for you and your ilk.

My advice for those faced with rejection would be, thank the rejector. When life throws lemons at you don't worry, make some lemonade. Treat rejections as challenges. They should make you doubly determined to follow your dreams. Also remember that not everyone understands your vision but in a world of 7 billion there are millions who embrace your dream. You just need to persevere to reach them. Dream on and dream big.

One of the contemporary world's most celebrated artist, Vincent Van Gogh led a tormented life. He was shunned and ridiculed and only sold one painting in his lifetime and that too to a friend! But, he never quit, leaving behind over 800 pieces. In today's market, his art is priceless.

And if that was not enough for Van Gogh, when Irving Stone sent his manuscript, "Lust for Life," this is what came back in the rejection letter, "A long, dull novel about an artist." But, the rest as they say, is history — perhaps history enjoying another little joke at Van Gogh's expense through Stone.

Rejection should not be treated as humiliation. Treat it as a challenge instead. Otherwise, there would be no Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was fired from a job quoting, 'lack of imagination'.

J.K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter series, speaking at Harvard in 2008 did not discuss success. Instead, she spoke of 'failures'. Her own in particular.

“You might never fail on the scale I did,” Rowling had said. “But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.

Her story is perhaps the most famous, failure-reversed-to-resounding-success stories of the 20th century. Today she may be richer than the Queen of England. But, back then, she was a penniless, recently-divorced, single mom, she wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter.

The manuscript was rejected 12 times. It was only a year later that Bloomsbury decided to go with it and that too it is believed was a fluke that made it possible. She was also advised to get a day job by her publishers because, 'there was no money in children’s books'!

Now, imagine those who had rejected Rowling's adventure series when it had come to them. Think how they must be kicking themselves for their lack of foresight. It is a sobering thought, isn't it?

Many dreams are nipped at bud by teachers and peers because of their own limited understanding. But, there are also a  handful who make mockery of the criticism and come on top.

As a young boy, Charles Darwin gave up on a medical career. He was often chastised by his father for being lazy and too dreamy. Darwin himself wrote, "I was considered by all, my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." Perhaps they judged him too soon, as Darwin today is the man who proved the theory of evolution. He is perhaps himself the best example of his theory of 'survival of the fittest'.

Sir Edmund Hillary’s gym instructor ridiculed the puny school boy despairing, ‘What will they send me next!’ That same boy by conquering the Mount Everest trumped his master's ill-asked question.

Then there is Beethoven whose music teacher had declared him, "hopeless at composing!"

It is imperative to dream. We stop existing the day we stop dreaming. Dreams are a manifestation of our power to achieve. We just need to believe in them.

Actor Amitabh Bachchan, speaks freely of his failures. On how his deep baritone voice was rejected by All India Radio and how he was turned down as an aspiring actor because of his great height and lanky frame. He however, lived on next to nothing and slept on benches but persevered. and won the National Award for the best debutant for his first film, Saat Hindustani. The rest of the journey, we all have grown up watching — it's history!

Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, everyone of them was asked to pack up and try something else.  Monroe was advised to find a day job as a secretary and Elvis was suggested to keep his day job as a truck driver. Beatles were told that guitar was not popular any more! The list is endless and the victories so great that many of these stories have been buried under the edifice of achievements so unique and great that the rejections are now laughable.

Scientist and inventors have often had to walk through fire, live in extreme poverty and deprivation and often fear of persecution to bring the world one step closer to the truth. Think Copernicus and Galileo and how the Church discredited and then censored their theories.

Let rejections not worry you. It does not matter what others think of you. What does really matter is what you think of yourself and how much do you believe in your dreams.

The best thing about dreams is that they are a manifestation of your own imagination. You should have total control over them. Forget about age, society, family, peers, mentors or religious propaganda. If you think it can be done by you then you can do it. Go ahead, chase your dream because that is the purpose if your life.