She closed her eyes for a moment of undisturbed serenity.
She was satisfied. With each passing moment, the picture became clearer, more
complete. She could feel the vivid colours run through her veins; they were the
elixir of her life. From the garden green to the blemish grey, each colour
flowed from her heart to her brain, until they tickled the very cells of her
sensory nerves and stood behind the curtains of her retina, all set to splash
the white canvas in front of her with life!
She slowly opened her eyes, her lashes moist with the
splendor of the navy blue from the skies that she had just flown from. Like
waking up from a dream, into the bruise cracks of reality, she picked up her
palette, where she had placed blots of every shade of blue that made up the
universe. She dipped her brush into the thick plod of cloud blue, and
frantically started painting on the ivory canvas that lay before her. With each
stroke, she could feel the heights of freedom, she had experienced minutes
before. She added a splash of bright blue, for the glory of an independent
life. Here and there, she painted clouds made of soft cotton; she could feel
the comfort of independence in them, where she had woven dreams of comforting
warmth and pleasure. Her happiness of flying in the void skies glinted in the
shades of golden yellow she had just painted. When she was done, she simply put
away her piece of creation in a dark corner of her room and went to bed.
Naina, from the past twenty years, lived her life through
her paintings. She simply had to close her eyes and envisage a world she
adored, and created the same on sheets of white canvas. If emotions could
speak, it was through her paintings. When at four, she had felt the warmth of
her mother’s hug, she had painted a sun. A sun, bright orange, spitting out
flames of soothing gold to create a blanket of protection around the earth. Her
earth was created using the blue and green of her wax crayons, carelessly
floating in the warmth of her creator.
When at eight, she had felt her friend’s kindness in helping
her out with a subject alien to her, she had painted a lonely night. While the
whole canvas was splattered with pitch black oil point, she felt lost;
wandering through a maze of dim hopelessness. When she remembered her friend, she
had painted a round moon on the layer of black moss on her canvas; a pure milky
white, a precious jewel of hope in the heap of coal. When she had felt her hope
returning, tiny stars made of sparkling silver started appearing on her canvas.
They twinkled like real, they reflected in the waters of her eyes.
When at ten, she had heard about the cruelty of poverty,
hunger, disease of the world, she had cried for the whole evening. Her
helplessness was outlined in the pencil sketches of the chained iron gates she
had created on a sheet of paper. On one side of the gate, were tiny human
figures, men, women and children with their arms outstretched towards the
heavens for help. On the other side were the same human figures, drowned in the
heaps of joys and wealth, who were looking at the other side of the gate and
smiling. The evil of their sarcastic smiles were etched in her sketch with such
precision that everyone could conclude the extinct traces of human spirit on
the planet. Her piece of art this time emerged without any colours.
As she grew up, all she felt, all she heard, all she spoke
came alive in her paintings. Strangely, she never liked sharing her world, she
threw the pieces of powerful pieces of existence she had created into a dark
corner of her room and had cried. The next morning, she was back to her routine
life.
The hall was lit up with the lights of an undying spirit.
All the corners of the room were adorned with Naina’s world. Hundreds of
paintings were the talk of the town. People gathered each painting, inferring
what they could mean. Each stroke had a hidden meaning. Each colour reflected a
part of her life. Men well versed in the field were in awe looking at Naina’s
works. They not only admired her for the honesty and spirit the paintings
brought out, but also praised her for the bravery in her battle in the war she
had lost when she was born.
That evening, when Naina came on stage to speak, to
acknowledge the stardom her new found fans had given her, the entire crowd in
the hall was drowned in the sea of surprise and awe. Young Naina used a walking
stick to make her way to the podium; the eyes that had seen the light of world
were hidden behind curtains of black glasses. Anyone could infer she was
visually impaired by looking at her. It was hard to believe, to believe that
the darkness she had lived had coloured a different world! They were still in
awe when she spoke:
‘…….. I was born without a vision. But the people around me
helped me see what I could not. The children of nature helped me see what I
could not. I have never seen the green of the grass or the purple of the lotus;
I have never seen how wide a smile is or the brightness of victory on people’s
faces; I have never seen the rainbow or the rain drops; my heart was my vision.
What my soul felt was how I thought the world looked like, and I want you
people to see what I can!...”, she walked away to create the hall of people she had just seen with her eyes on the canvas.
