There's something profound about two sketches that I was forced into making, and in both cases, I was unable to finish; but they have given me confidence to tread through the magnificent world of art and design, at least in a minimal way.
My first meaningful artistic moment came in the fourth grade. School kalotsavams (festival of art and culture) are big in Kerela; they happen in intra-school level to state level where districts compete for the prestigious prizes. It was school kalotsavam time. The St. Sebastian Lower Primary School, Nellikampoil, where I studied till fifth standard, was gearing towards picking the best talent to send out for inter school competitions. I was completely unaware of anything such as these. I am not sure why, I remember one of my teachers, Seema, almost carrying me to a classroom where the intra-school qualifying competition was happening from where they pick the best to go for competing with other schools.
When I reached the classroom, other children were already busy drawing. Picture of a guava fruit with two leaves, from the student sketchbook was pinned on the board. It was happening in the fifth standard students' classroom. I remember the classroom, the smell of pencil shavings, and that blank paper somehow didn't intimidate me as it did others. I was shown a bench and desk, I sat down and began doing the obvious. Others finished the outline, finished shading, and some also made efforts to colour it. I still very distinctly remember the guava fruit I drew; perhaps watching others do their stuff, I had not finished even the basic sketch completely; to my shock, I was called to the office and asked to represent the school in the upcoming school kalotsavam sub-district level. Was my unfinished lines that promising? Perhaps teachers see a little better and clearer than students do. Now I know the theory, creativity is not measured on quantity, but on quality.
I remember winning the first prize in the sub-district competitions in a school in the town not so close by; and I also remember that though I had represented the sub-district in the district level competitions I could not make it to the next level. I was too tiny to feel the possibilities flowing through my small hands; thus that journey remained unfinished like the sketch of the guava fruit. For years afterward, art remained a peripheral interest, something I engaged in when it was demanded of me by circumstances, but never pursued with serious intent. The unfinished sketch from elementary school gathered dust in memory, its physical form long since lost to time.
Many years later I was doing my postgraduate studies in Loyola College, Chennai. Amid the pressure of thesis work and academic demands of the second year, there begins the famous Ovations: it is the interdepartmental cultural and talent competitions for days, and the grand finale with scores of celebrities visiting the campus, and endless campus fun. It is the time to settle scores for all the rivalries that exist between departments. Though it involves all the departments, the customary rivalry is between the Commerce Department with their pots of money and power, and the Media Department with its unparalleled talents and ruthless fervour. The under-graduate students jump into it like there is no tomorrow.
The competitions began. A couple of days have past and the Media Department has not started anything on their scoreboard. An under-graduate student had given his name for the sketching competition, but the rule of participating said that you have to participate as a pair; though you draw individually the winning will be decided by the combined score. We were desperate for a win, but not able to find a partner for the our medal-sure sketching participant. Here too one of the professors of the department, Alex Parimalam, who had taken my entrance interview and had seen some sketches and designs in my portfolio, reached out to me to accompany that participant. I was so unsure and not confident; would I bring down the score because of my out of touch state. My going to this competition was so much similar to the elementary school incident. I was there against my will and effort.
The sketching competition began, and the theme given was, women and war. We both discussed for a while, and then began our individual endeavour. I remember sketching a woman with a partially open bosom, feeding her newborn child; and there were tiny drops of splashed blood over her bare skin; meaning, as women live through the misfortune of war, their efforts at family building gets mingled with the violence and bitterness of war and cruelty. As I sketched, I could see regard and appreciation on people’s face; but they also looked at it with some degree of doubt, whether it would get disqualified for semi nudity. Though Loyola campus is quite a liberal space for ideas and free opinions, disqualification in a high voltage competition like this one was not a distant reality. But I worked at it as well as I was able. As I, also my partner in competition, were still long way from finishing our works, the whistle sounded for submitting our works. All the works were put up for public viewing. If not disqualified, we were sure of the prize. As we were reaching back to our department, the announcement of the prize happened—and our scoreboard began ticking with the maiden first prize of the season.
This second sketch, also destined to remain unfinished, somehow connected me back to that fourth-grade self. Despite the gap of nearly two decades, I recognised something familiar in the process. Neither of these works exists physically anymore. The first likely discarded during a routine classroom cleaning, the second perhaps lost in one of the college union cupboards. Yet their absence is almost fitting—they were never about the finished product but rather the moments of beginning. Though the sketches themselves are gone, I've evolved alongside their memory, carrying forward the creative spark they first ignited.
Biographical notes.
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