Art Attack!

Last week, my daughter got home from school with her Home Learning tasks for the week end.  She was supposed to create a mythical character out of her imagination with a description and picture!  As a routine, I check their communication book right after they come back from school so that we all are mentally prepared well in advance for the ensuing 'tsunami' called 'homework ' in the evening !  The moment I encountered   words like "create”, "imagination" and "picture" in her task, I lost all ability to comprehend what actually was required to be done and I got confused between "mythical" and "mythological".  During such confused moment, I suggested that she should choose Hanuman from Ramayana!  Bewilderment writ large on her face and she exclaimed," Ma, but Hanuman is a mythological character and he existed several thousand years ago. I need to create something which does not exist in reality".
 
Ah, now the brain was coming out of that momentary state of haziness and I regained my ability to comprehend.  So, after few long breaths and an extensive search in Google, we both zeroed in on some "unreal" creature but she wanted to create something very new and unforeseen, to make life more difficult for me, to say the least!    We put our thinking caps on and kept on thinking the whole evening in between my kitchen run and her cartoon shows....
 
Art has always remained an alien subject for me for few reasons:  firstly, I did not get any "artistic” streak by inheritance; secondly, in the school curriculum during my school years, there was no specific period for "art" and thirdly, I never had an artist friend until recently.   

Ever since, these home assignments have compelled me to come up with something artistic at regular intervals, I have started buying books like "How to sketch animals", "Drawing made easy" and the likes.   When I could not think of something as "very very new and unforeseen" mythical character even after thinking through the hour long episode of my favorite reality show, I resigned and went off to sleep.  

Almost in a flash, before falling off to sleep, I remembered the poems and stories by  Sukumar  Roy which was part of growing up of almost all Bengali children (Sukumar Roy was father of the legendary Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray).  His poems and stories for children only had characters which mostly did not exist in reality but all of us were hooked to each one of them.   As if to show my ‘creative’ genius, I took clue from one of his poems and suggested my daughter to combine a leopard with a dinosaur!

Even though, she was not very convinced, another genius in my household (my son) persuaded her to ‘at least try and take chance’. …….and now the most difficult part of the assignment was how to draw a ‘half-leopard half-dinosaur’ looking creature!  When it comes to drawing, my daughter cannot imagine anything beyond landscape, my son cannot imagine any object beyond cars but they are pretty good in their effort in drawing cars or scenery…….Sadly enough, I cannot imagine anything whatsoever if I am asked to draw something!

With such limitations, we skeptically took out all  those self-help books on how to draw!

 In my life, so far, fortunately or unfortunately, I never found the right thing at the right time (a right groom at the right age to marry; a right job at the right time; a right dress at the right time for example).   Not to break that tradition, none of those sketch books contained a page showing step-by-step, how to draw a leopard and / or a dinosaur!  After almost 3 hours of drawing, erasing and redrawing, we could somehow manage to come up with a very clumsy sketch of the combined creature and were feeling very happy about the effort.   While we were preparing to write a fitting description of the creature (that was not very difficult as my daughter writes well), the son jumped to have a look!

He is quite straight-forward and blunt while criticizing anything and said without any hint of reservation,” Well, the leopard does not resemble a leopard remotely and neither does the dinosaur; the aggression of the leopard is missing and the dinosaur, at the most looks like a giant lizard”.   We, mother-daughter felt quite enraged with such bluntness and defended ourselves,” It does not matter. It’s all imaginary, so……”

“If that is the case, then why do you need to bother so much?  Even if it looks like an ant with a fat tail, you can go ahead with that.  After all, it’s your imagination and an ant can grow a tail while you imagine. Give it an interesting name and that’s it!”, and he went back to his den leaving two of us fuming and distraught at the same time (here we must confess that he was absolutely right while criticizing our drawing).

After initial few minutes of incoherence, I saw a point in what he said and turned to the genius for a catchy and interesting name.

“Call it Leopardozard, a combination of leopard and giant lizard which carries killer venom hidden beneath the scales on its tail”, was his suggestion.   He also suggested few features to add to the drawing as well  to the description and we obeyed him without any doubt in mind!

Now with those small additions in the drawing, our Leopardozard was staring at us out of the page aggressively, ferociously and venomously!

……after the storm had stopped and the dust had settled, I was wondering whether I should enroll myself for an elementary course on drawing , so as not to feel so helpless during project time.   Even if it is not for the kids, but for the grandchildrens’ sake!  

Will it not be great fun if I can draw a Mickey Mouse or a Donald Duck for them without worrying about where to find a drawing of the same?

I will certainly do it before I become a granny!

Malts, Margaritas and little emotion.......

I must confess that the Malt Society, few of their 'spirited' members and their equally 'spirited' (if not a bit more) wives have been able to create a vortex around me and it is difficult for me to resist that 'pull'. Not that I want to resist too. So when my husband mentioned about an invitation to a get-together at one of the malt-lover's house, I immediately ran to check if I had matching accessories with the saree and my husband booked himself on a return flight from overseas just to be there over the weekend !

Now that this was my third attendance in such family get together' of Malt Society members, few faces have become familiar and I have now become familiar with the pulse of such gatherings. When few people interact without being dictated by their ego, social standing, and corporate background, for few hours, we all get a chance to be ourselves!
....and some 'sipping and nosing' of single malt literally transforms everyone a 'free spirited living being' without any inhibition.

The wonderful host and hostess, with their heartfull of warmth , the adorable menfolk (I mean it, seriously, whether in towel/s or fully clothed !), beautiful ladies with their stock of informative gossip(?), is too lethal a combination not to nurture a hang-over post party. ......and here Tabarak deserves a special mention for his tongue-tingling Margaritas!

In our perceived sense of emotional security, friends are a vital link. As we still consider ourselves 'fresh arrivals' in this city, apprehensions as to acceptance was reasonably high. Since we have been accepted with warmth and affection and without doubt , both of us (myself and my husband) will always remain grateful to all of you, ladies and gentlemen.....

.....and on a lighter note, it's a bonus for me, nevertheless, that I can indulge myself for some harmless dose of flirting with few of the MSA heroes and I allow my husband to such privilege as well in case he feels the need ! After all, after few sips of single malt and Tabarak's mind-blowingly sinful Margaritas, will we blame ourselves if the mind stops following logic for some hours?

So all of you wonderfully 'spirited' malt lovers, never stop spreading your goodness among people, your love for the spirit  and never loose the spirit of living life on your own terms.  To me, each one of you are 'the rarest of rare brew' !!!