Winter Garden @ 2013

Winter is a good time for flowers. For those homes with a garden, winter is a colourful season – yellows, reds, purples, whites – it is nice to see all those hues splashing and cascading in merry confusion. As I have discovered, it takes very little to get all these colours into your garden and then, into your life. Nature takes care of most of the stuff anyway; the sun happily shines its warmth and light down on the sprouting shoots, the soil nourishes the roots and as the gardener, you have to water and every now and then, do a nip and tuck on the spreading plants.

I had gone along with chrysanthemums and petunias last year for winter. The results I was able to see encouraged me to take on a more ambitious winter project this time. So, I went around consulting garden aficionados, collected young plants, took care with the potting mix and watered and prayed. Nearly 2 months after I had planted the first tiny plant, colours slowly started appearing in my garden. First it was the chrysanthemums who shyly opened their radiant faces to the sunlight; the gay petunias imperiously followed and pretty soon, there were blooms of all colours and shapes. The hesitant pansies started blooming and it is a real joy when the pansy petals with the loved face-like dark prints appear. The zagged-edged dianthuses were not to be left behind and they too joined in the general bedlam of colours. The verbenas too opened their little bell-shaped petals with great willingness. Finally, it was the turn of the big boys – the dahlias with their impressive girth and humongous multi-layer petals.

When I see all the richness around me, I look up at the big gardener above and give him a hearty 'thank you'. I forgot to mention the most important tool that the gardener has in his paraphernalia, and that is…love!

(All images shown here are from my own garden; so nothing borrowed J. )

An Art of Many Forms

I am terrible at drawing; have always been since school days when my Vinci-esque repertoire was limited to battle-scenes of unaerodynamic-looking planes above dropping egg-shaped bombs on proportionally-challenged hapless infantry below, grotesquely-smiling plaid-shirted ‘kou-boys’ with shoulders too broad and legs too small and finally, my pièce de résistance – scenery sketches of hills, valleys and plains. My sceneries were dominated by triangular hills which I am sure, would have made Pythagoras proud and a serpentine river flowing down from the hills in distinctly Z-like courses, and of course, the ubiquitous proportionally-challenged people frolicking in the foreground. Evidently I suck at drawing, which is why I have forever looked upon people gifted with the artist’s eye for detail, colour and imagination (not to forget proportion!!) with awe and a teeny bit of jealousy.

While some artistically-gifted people are content to express themselves on drawing paper and painter’s canvases, still others explore several additional avenues of expression, like the sand painters who work such wonderous images using just sand or the artists who use superlative imaginative skills to fashion beautiful objects of art using the most nondescript of artistic medium – sticks!! Yes, it is true that over the ages, man has sought and found unique and mesmerizing artistic voices where stones, egg shells, glass panes, even pieces of discarded junk have done service as sometimes the brush, at other times as the blank canvas upon which man carves out his impossible, wonderful dreams.

To conclude, for those with the creative bent, everything is grist to the mill. So there is this friend of mine; she is unmistakably a member of this singular clan of individuals who splash the world around with colours and new forms. She carries a notebook around – a constant companion of many years – where she records the passing wisps of still half-forming images which sometimes float by. Her living room is adorned with wall murals, picture portraits, a framed Ganesha made up of perfectly-cut and wielded silver foil pieces and wonderful knick-knacks of decorative items painstakingly crafted with everyday items.

I have reproduced one of her most recent murals; I find the colours, the smooth curves and yes, the imaginativeness in juxtaposing the gently-swaying flower stalks with that of the left silhouette of a girl’s face quite striking. Now more than ever, I am convinced that Art is a gift – a gift which brings joy to the self and to others, and creates new spaces for reflection and comprehension. Yes, Art is a gift.