The Things That Stay

What are you wearing right now? A graphic tee and shorts? Maybe a nighty? Or striped, comfy pyjamas with a plain T-shirt? Whatever it is, there is a good chance that you didn't make it. Somewhere, sometime, somebody imagined it, chose the colors, decided the pattern, worked on the fabric, stitched it, printed it, dyed it, folded it, packed it and sent it on its journey before it finally reached your wardrobe. We seldom notice such things or think about it. Lately, I've been browsing Indian art in the form of sarees! (Well, I’m married now!) And I've been admiring every little detail that goes into creating them. Kalamkari prints, Tussar work, the almost invisible little threads of silk woven into Kanjeevaram, Mysore silk, Bandhani, Ajrakh, and so, so, so many more. Every time I look closely, I wonder how somebody's mind even imagined such a thing. My close ones and family know how I pick clothes for myself - be it in color combinations or patterns. You can call it weird but my wardrobe looks like a neatly arranged pile of colorful blankets and a painter's palette. For all these designer clothes to exist, someone had to imagine them. Someone had to create them. Someone had to sit patiently and make thousands of tiny decisions that we now see as one beautiful finished piece. And that thought took me somewhere else.

An artist lives forever. Eternally forever.My Ajji has a few artistic assets (which she doesn't consider either artistic or worthy of being called assets!!!), and they've quietly witnessed so many generations by now. The people who created them are no longer here. Their hands have stopped working. Their voices have disappeared. We may not even know what they were thinking when they made those pieces. But their work is still here. It keeps reminding us that they once existed. That, to me, is a strange kind of immortality.

One of my dear friends, Pooja, has gifted me a photo frame. It has a charcoal-pencil artwork of Pavan and me, smiling wholeheartedly in the picture. The artist, Akhil Gunaga, is someone I have never met or even seen personally. Yet his work somehow travelled into my home. I don't know how many such artists are quietly living around us. People whose names we may never know. People whose work enters thousands of homes and hearts while they remain completely unknown to the people who admire it. And perhaps that is the beautiful thing about art. The artist doesn't always have to be present for the art to speak.

(Pooja's gift - the photograph I'm referring to.)

A saree can tell you about a region, its traditions and the patience of the hands that created it. An old wooden box can remind you of your grandparents. A painting can make you stop for a few seconds in the middle of a busy day. The artist leaves. The work stays. But while thinking about artists, I realised something else.

Perhaps we are all leaving little pieces of ourselves behind, even if we don't consider ourselves artists. Not on canvas or in galleries. But in people. But in people. Our casual conversations might stay in somebody's mind much longer than we imagine. A sentence that slipped out of our mouth without much thought might give someone courage. A suggestion we casually made might become the beginning of somebody's new idea. A compliment we have already forgotten might still be remembered by the person who received it. Even our smallest actions can become somebody else's memory.

Maybe a lot of our existence is quietly preserved in much smaller places. In someone's memories or habits or in a sentence someone remembers. In a piece of cloth that has travelled through generations. In a photograph. In an old piece of art sitting quietly in ajji's cupboard, completely unaware that somebody is calling it an asset. Maybe we are all artists in ways we don't recognize. Some create paintings, some weave sarees, some sketch faces, some write, some cook, some build houses and homes. Some tell stories. And some simply say the right thing to someone on a difficult day. All of them create something. All of them leave something behind :)