Every day just passes by doing mundane stuffs- like watching reels on instagram- like I don't have any better things to do. A new day come and pass; with no plan I have become a cow lying down in the street. I got some demerits- a lot actually. I don't socialize- I don't like to. Talking to people, being in a group- all these crowd activities are so tiresome. But I won't deny, sometimes I like to be among friends so that unknowns don't bother me. Maybe that's the reason I lack stories to tell. I am just so far away from gossips and drama that I don't need any critical thinking. Or maybe any kind of drama seems rather dull to me.
Not that I haven't tried expelling this boredom, at first, I tried art. I used to go to art school in my childhood. I began drawing from the age of six. When I was in kindergarten, I so excited about painting, that I used to make my papa draw shapes for me. Then I liked to fill those shapes with colors, sometimes he used to teach me to draw simple things. Once he taught me to draw a peacock with basic shapes. I drew it over and over so many times that I learnt it by heart. Then one day, my mom said that she's taking me to an art class, and I was delighted.
The art class was a walking distance from my home in Goshala, and my art teacher- a young man in his twenties who had completed graduation and was looking for a job. His name was Rinku, and he taught art to kids on Sundays in his living room. One fine Sunday, my mom took me to his class. The teacher was easy going- what would being strict to kids bring him anyway. Since it was the first day, Mr. Rintu told me to draw as I wished, and I drew whatever I knew- a peacock. It was not a big deal for me since I have practiced it repetitively. It took me a minute to draw it. Mr. Rinku was impressed. He had not known many six-year-olds drawing peacocks. It was something to be taught later on. So, my art teacher skipped the basic shapes lessons for me and started with some advanced shapes. With this began my journey in art and I was excited for more.
I wanted to do watercolor, but Mr. Rinku was reluctant until I was in 2nd year. With some requests from my mom, he began to teach me the watercolor basics- like color mixing. He won't teach me much because to him watercolor takes time and it was for students from 2nd year above. When I reached 2nd year, he was gone. I heard that Mr. Rintu got appointed as an art teacher in a government school. So, he went on to become a school's art teacher and I was left without one. But my diploma was incomplete. Our parents' generation was the kind- if you start something, you ought to complete. With this view, my mom was the best in finding me teachers, she would hire all my tuition teachers and change from time to time if she found someone better in the business. So, she called her number one go-to in such matters- Aunty Sarada, her best friend who had two daughters- one older than me and the other younger than me by one year. They were also put in an art school near their house in Jayanagar. So, that's where I was taken next, and this time my sister who is two and half years younger than me came along.
I don't like change- another demerit of mine. I can adapt, but I hate it. I was doing well in Mr. Rinku's class, the crowd was less, but here the number of students were more, I felt out of place. We learned for some time there but my excitement with art was gone. My sister wanted to do dance, so I went along with her to join Bharatnatyam class in Rang Bhawan. The class timings clashed with art class. Since we have learnt some of art and a diploma in art needed to complete High School first, so we decided to go for focus on dance classes and continue art later in life. That's when I left drawing and never drew again for a long time.
Now that I'm bored in my late twenties, I scribble sometimes. I never learnt watercolor other than the basics, and it takes time, so not my piece of cake. But it's not helping, I don't get the mood to draw often. To try something different, I started an oil painting. It has been 5 months the painting is still incomplete. All unfinished works and I'm on my mobile all my free time scrolling or sleeping. All I do is regret at night- one day gone again, spoiled.
