A Full Circle

My initial idea for this post at the start of the new decade was to write something meaningful, something about how my life had literally and symbolically reached a full circle, how I had accomplished all that I had set out to, how my book was akin to the act of giving birth, how certain seismic shifts occur within you when you hold your book in your hands, how much gratitude I feel etc etc. But all that is in the past is where it is meant to be, what is over is over, challenges have been met headlong, gargantuan voyages have been embarked on and returned from, friendships that have run their course have been axed, fantasies have thankfully turned to dust and an eternity of perceived barriers have been broken through. Right now in Bangalore's beautiful winter sun, new joys, exciting challenges and happy moments await me mingled always with memories of that incredible ancient city of Matera, swirling in the mist like an enchanted land.

 However sometimes you have to recall the past to remember how far you have progressed and to use that as an encouragement to progress further or take the necessary steps to do so. That is what birthdays and new years are for, markers to reflect and assess. Ten years ago when I started this blog, I was at a very different place in all aspects of my life. I recall making the choice to consciously focus on my illustrations rather than my problems. My illustrations were the only thing I had to grasp onto in a world that was disintegrating under my feet. It was a good decision because things changed with that. Where once I was stationary and digging myself into a hole, focussing on my work propelled me forward into doing things I would never have dared and gave me results I fathomed were always beyond me. 

All those efforts and choices have led me to here and now. January 2020 has been wonderful. There have been beautiful meetings with old friends, pleasant mornings sketching with "sketch buddies", lots and lots of great food, strong coffee, top class prints of my book illustrations, drawing with other like minded incredibly talented people and the blaze of the moringa tree abuzz with activity from birds and different kinds of bees and enormous butterflies every single morning fills my heart so much that if I could sing I really would. But I draw instead and that is enough.

Twenty three years ago I made a voyage alone to Australia to study illustration. There, for my final exhibition, 

I drew this girl with a red scarf over her head. (below)

At Queensland College of Art, I was blessed to have an extraordinary teacher who had the gift of imparting knowledge. For me, a student with an unquenchable thirst to learn as much as possible, the result was a very firm foundation in illustration. At the one and only critique that I took part in my teacher Armin's class, I put up the picture above to see how it would rate in his assessment. What I got from my teacher were disparaging remarks about this picture in front of the class. It didn't meet his standards for a Distinction. I was given exactly one mark short of it. 

Then a few months later, this very same illustration got me a High Distinction at the final critique for Master's degree students, the external assessors commended me for creating such an excellent image, people walking through my exhibit at the college kept stopping in front of this picture and pausing to stare.  I was halted at the corridors with, "You are the woman who made that picture!"

Now two decades and three years later, after hours and hours of practice, after making 100s and 1000s of drawings, my life has come to a full circle when the girl with the red scarf looks at me again from the cover of my book. 

I considered it an act of grace to have been able to not only dedicate this book to my former teacher but also to have been able to hand this book over to him in Rome, the person I looked up to for a lifetime of guidance and inspiration, the mentor and friend who had provided me with so much encouragement over the years and so much moral support during the making of my book through his flawless beautifully written emails to me. This could almost have been a scene from a Hollywood movie set in Rome, had there been the appropriate background music.

But this is real life: A few hours after I landed in Rome and reunited with my teacher after 23 long years, he accompanied me to a restaurant to have dinner with his wife. Along the way his phone rang. He answered it and spoke the entire length of the 15 minute walk to the restaurant while I walked silently beside him.  Unfortunately his negation of me did not stop there, that teacher still had disparaging remarks to make and this time it was about my worth as an illustrator. In spite of the fact that I had conceptualized and drawn every single image on my own, I was told I could not have made this book without him.  Being in his presence was extremely unpleasant. I was snapped at when I spoke. I was mocked about my "Indian accent" incessantly. I was subject to one-sided deathless monologues during every meal together, I was at the receiving end of dickish snide remarks, the sort you cannot do anything about; on other occasions I was rudely cut off mid-sentence each time I attempted to speak and made to stand and wait humiliatingly alone for inordinate lengths of time over and over again while he and his wife shopped for things like one plastic folder (45 minutes) and then something else and then yet again some other thing during during every outing.

This is a couple who are known for a much-publicized act of painting on the graves of dead refugees in Lampedusa apparently in order to give the dead some dignity and to make a political statement to the government, and yet this same couple could not bring themselves to treat a living guest from India with basic decency.  In all I was  treated like a dog, thrown a few crumbs of hospitality and served up a coldness not unlike the bleak atmosphere in my illustration of the girl running through the forest.  In retrospect, I have realized that I was at the receiving end of what is called racism (this much will do for this Indian, she isn't worth more). My stay in Rome was a stressful and anxious one.

So much of the memories of a place have to do with the kind of people you encounter there and how you engage with each other. It took the love and the warmth of the people in Matera, complete strangers who are now friends, to restore my confidence and to accept the realization that how people treat me is a reflection of what they think about me and what they think about me is their business not mine. I did not feel comfortable with what I was put through in Rome. The sadness and distress I felt at being at the receiving end of what was dehumanizing and invalidating behavior was traumatizing for me, to say the least. The dissonance between what I considered a close friendship with a mentor and the illusion it ultimately turned out to be will take me a very long time to process and accept. It was time to draw the line, to close the circle and move on. This too is progress.

Growth is when you can say, "This is not good enough for me" and that's it.

End of story.  I'm moving on."

At 50. A satisfying closure, an inevitable ending and a fresh start.

Redoing Rome