Why I Paint?

There is something especially beautiful and wonderful when anything breaks through the walls surrounding it expanding itself to appear before the world in its full glory and majestically making a statement-' This is what I can do, never underestimate me again.'

Strangely I have had a decided preference of sketching over painting. Ever since I first picked up a pencil to marr the surface of paper with cruel and harsh blows to produce something so amazing, soft and delicate that I forgot the process and its brutality, I have been in love with pencils and paper. We read poetry about clouds, candles, earth and many more things which are praised and revered because they take pains and then extremely selflessly provide us with something precious whether it be rain, light or food. Inspite of a wonderous collection of such writings I am yet to encounter any praise dedicated to paper. How can something so obviously important be so easily overlooked. We sharpen our pencils and then start putting down our words or images, carving a reminder of our pleasure, on its surface.

With this realisation in mind, one day I picked up a sable haired paint brush just to put some colour on the paper without any base sketch to work on, partly because of my newlyfound compassion for paper and partly because I did not have any idea but just an insufferable need to see colour. Smeared with paint and water when I touched the paper with its tips I had another feeling. I felt, somehow I was making up for my years of torture, somehow I was applying a balm to a bruised soul, somehow I was providing it with a reason or an assurance that its value is appreciated. It felt that my gentle massage and the rainbow of colours would give it new hope and let it know that whatever it suffers is for a higher purpose. The end product of all the toil on its part does not go into oblivion unrecognised because it is something of insurpassable beauty.

The paints stuffed inside tubes, sealed until someone is ready to 'Create' do not lose their character in confinement. What I believe is that they signify hope and patience. Confined in tubes forced to forego their shape, hiding their character from the world, they patiently abide their their time keeping up the prtense of objects -mere objects- until they are released to appear in their full grandeur as colours of life, not just as constituents but as life itself.

Astoundingly with this revelation the quality of my paintings has considerably improved, they are no more abyssmally pathetic attempts at creation but they are wonders. They are amazing objects... no that would be wrong, objects are exactly what they are not, they are precious...and just that. Thruthfully- no, my paintings have not improved, I have not had a rendezvous with Picasso's ghost who gave me overnight excellence but now my paintings are not imitations of objects which can go bad and niether they are portrayal of ideas which can be less than perfect, now they are ideas in themselves which are perfect and unique in the true sense because even I never visualised them while painting. They are life which is never what is expected or planned.