Birth of a painting

Long long ago, the famous Marathi writer, mostly satirist Mr Pu La Deshpande had wondered ‘Why XYZ becomes a station master at the station on odd railway line of Shenoli?’ Well is there really an answer? All Indians would attribute it to the fete. Is it or otherwise?

I wondered many a time, when none from my ancestral tree ventured anywhere near colours, brushes or any other art material, how come I developed an intense urge to draw odd lines on the canvas, and made it a reality in spite of being extremely busy in my profession. In a span of 40 years of practice as an Internist, I must have seen more than thousands of patients, having enough experience and material to write at least a few odd papers on many peculiar cases those I came across. But watching my colleagues literally doling out papers, mostly manipulating the observations, closely matching with what West has already come out with, and then just labelling it ‘Indian’ scenario, I felt, I just do not have it!

And then, not exactly out of blues, it happened. Colours started making rounds of my grey matter. Of course, it was there since childhood, in the form of getting cent per cent marks in most of the drawing classes, but to take it a concrete shape 20 years had to elapse. I tried my hand at oils when I was undergrad, painted few, but found it tedious as oils take longer time to dry though mixing and getting the correct shade is much easier than watercolours, other cheap option.

After a lull of about 25 years, circumstances practically forced me to take to colours again. My friend was instrumental in bringing back me in the fold. She presented me with art material worth in thousands and practically pushed me into it, this time though it was a different material, Acrylic and I fell in love with it.

The birth of a painting!

Why a writer writes? I too, so I can tell. The words take the form of an idea and almost take control of your brain practically leaving you sleepless in the bed because they keep on asking ‘What next?’ The words come lined up in sentences making the flow easier as you keep on delving deeper and deeper. And unless you jot it down that feeling of restlessness just keeps on lingering.

Painting too gives similar delivery pains, almost!

You chance to see a picture, a photograph, memory of passing as if through the dream is stored deep somewhere in the labyrinths, that suddenly surfaces and makes you see the picture being formed in your psyche, metaphorically and then really!

This one is actual photograph of Matheran taken from a distance. The mood of nature, about to go in fury has been caught on the camera so vividly that I had to paint it. The clouds posed the most problem. Forget the fury about to unfurl; mine looked like a cotton candy gone haywire. Layers after layer, shades after shades I tried, but to no avail. In the end, when about to give up on the painting, an idea struck me. I had acrylic spray cans. Covering the green part to be painted I gave two layers of spray, one grey and one light black from a distance and suddenly the clouds changed their attitude and started looking as if they are about to pour in a minute!

To bring the different shades of green on the paper too was another problem. The ‘You Tubes’ videos make it look so simple, but when you get at it, either the brush width is too broad or it just does not hold enough colour. Again after trials and trying I came somewhere near what I had envisaged!

Liberal but judicious use of spray cans got me what I had seen with the closed eyes. Here I used 3 media, Spray, acrylic tubes and simple sketch pens and the end result was phenomenal.The fog, the snow, the thin layer of ice on the blue waters, partially shaded blues skies, fern trees I loved doing it. It gives such a soothing effect to the eyes, that it almost calms down your agitated nerves!

I always longed to paint abstract human figures but did not know how to go about it. The background that has turned out so bright and vivid actually is the end result of many painting accidents. With a newfound fascination for sprays, I painted the upper half with light yellow almost creamish, mixing it with white, yellow, orange and red. And I realized, almost amounting to my folly that once you spray, you cannot mix the colours with the usual brushes, though shown on ‘YouTube’ practical.

After failed mixing with the brushes[ spoiling most of them in the end], I sprayed again. But over-spraying made the colours to drip like a leaky ceiling. In a hurry to stop the flow to reach the ‘Forbidden’[covered] area, I tried to wipe them off with cotton duster and lo, it made a distinct pattern of threads with free-flowing colours on the canvas that it took me though in absolute surprise, nonetheless, gave me something that was looking fascinating on the canvas. When young I was briefly in contact with the famous artist, painter B Prabha, so naturally, due to her influence, my human figures had to have long arms! Somehow I could not get the desired result with the brushes, so I mixed them with the tip of fingers freely. And was happy to have the eerie pattern on the torso. Rest was finished with sketch pens and I had given birth to a very distinct painting!

Dignity in Life, and Dignity in Death too !

Dignity in Life, Dignity in Death !

The incidences those prompted me to write about my mother’s courageous decision to die with dignity, made me ponder over the issues which all the doctors face, day in and day out!

I am going to make a very bold statement which definitely will not be palatable for today's children. Mostly from India and largely from the lower,  the lower middle and the middle classes, who do have access to the money, to some extent, but in the larger context they lack the text totally, "What's the  LIFE  all about and what does it teach !"

Otherwise how an energetic, eager to help young doctor is beaten almost to death when an elderly in his eighties, dies of purely natural causes!

Their obsessive attachment to their parents, especially and mostly mothers, almost borders on the pathological! Their mothers, kept on the pedestal only for being THEIR mothers, are flawless, [ mother can do no wrong!] insanely good human beings, inhuman- not in a bad way, but lack rationale at  most of the times and most of all, are immortal! And that bothers me the most because day in and day out I have to deal with this reality! Their immortality and the Death being the ultimate statement that cannot be altered or rewritten again!

As a practicing Internist I keep on admitting many critical cases who require intensive care so are either in the I.C.U or I.C.C.U [They are different.] The very fact that they have to be in the ICU means they are critical and their chances of survival are guarded. And I vouch with my heart firmly held in its place that we try, we do try to the fullest but the expectations of the relatives, especially children are beyond reason, any reason!

‘If I admit my mother in ICU and if I am spending hugely, she has to come out walking because she is my MOTHER and at any cost I do not want to lose her!’, is not a very outrageous statement, we hear it every day!

I have always said what India lacks squarely is ‘Scientific’ temperament! Medicine is not a commercial mall where if you pay more so you get a better TV!

I have seen children going, especially daughters, hysterical when the mothers lose a courageous battle either to cancer, that's going on for months, or to the un-treatable heart or lung ailment which makes their daily life not less than hell, patients’ and the children’s alike! Because for the patients, every breath  is a herculean effort or every step is a Himalayan task and for the children, innumerable rounds to the specialists’ cabins for their endless appointments, timeless wait in the queue for the Artificial Kidney Units or frequent admissions in ICU, which drain their coffers dry very fast!! They beg for the lives of their near and dear ones, in such situations too, and I don’t blame them for it, but when there is a tube in every orifice of the frail body, the heart is being run by the pacemaker, respiration is being taken care of by the ventilator support and kidneys’ role is taken over by a dialyzer, such type of expectations are not only unreasonable but are unjustifiable for the soul that’s nearly on the death bed, who in a real sense, is suffering the most if would have been conscious! Would anybody with a sane mind, really like to be in such an undignified status?

Maybe, because in such situations, it’s the reason that departs first and the hope, always expecting a miracle, that keeps the life going on!

I beg to differ here because ‘Reason takes you farther in life, Hope may just turn out to be an illusion. Here it’s mostly so!

In the end, when the bill comes from the accounts department, all the so-called well-wishers and relatives who make the kids take unwarranted decisions, mostly in the form of emotional blackmail, start making an inconspicuous exit, and then there is the grand entry of so-called ‘Social Workers’. Affiliated to some small political outfit mostly infamous for their nuisance value. And the tussle goes to a different level leaving 'The Dignity in Death' with an ugly face!

Maybe it's the guilt or the bickering by the so-called near and dear ones make them go through this rigmarole!

In such instances too there are good children who never forget that their parents in the end are human and they have to bid them farewell in life at some point of time or the other!

On getting the news from the newspaper that mother of one of our chaddi chums has left for the heavenly abode, I and my other common friend rushed to Pune the very next day, to offer our condolences. To our utter surprise, there was nobody in the home, everybody was at his/her respective workplace, schools or colleges, except his father, who was coolly reading the latest newspaper sitting on the sofa in the hall! There was not even a customary oil lamp burning when somebody departs in a Hindu home. Father just shook the head and said,’ She had lived her life fully, she had to go so we allowed her to go with dignity!’

Another doctor after seeing the valiant efforts on our part to save her mother, who had the least wish to live said,

" Doctor, why are you forcing her to live, even if this phase passes out, I know my mother, she will be a walking cadaver, let's have dignity in her death, I’ll sign the ‘No resuscitation form!" 

With a faint trace of tears in the eyes, she bade farewell to her mother and not only allowed her mother to live life with dignity but allowed to have dignity in her death, too! 

Dignity in Death

Like every other child, I too had a mother, the mother. Of course! Many may find this, a very stupid sentence, but hey wait, let me elaborate. Like every other Indian mother she too was quite normal, maybe, average be a better word, like doting her children, working hard for the family, trying to fit in the role assigned by the Indian Society for her, of a perfect mother, a perfect housewife aka cook, housemaid, sweeper, laundry washer,, a perfect woman, superwoman in fact, and she used to be, mostly successful in all the departments in parts, maybe below average in others. But yes, the most beautiful part about her in this respect was, she never felt guilty about it and spoke out her mind most frankly. But rather than all these usual characters, she was very unique in her own ways. She was one of the very few working mothers in mid or late fifties where most of the women of her era did not, could not look beyond their home, their family, totally submerging in the role assigned to them by the then Indian society! She completed her matriculation[ 10^th of the times] in the first attempt after leaving the school in the 40s and appearing for the exam 6 years after my birth, that is, 17 years after she left the school, to be given in marriage. She did not stop at that and took up a job in primary school as low grade, 1^st and 2^nd level, teacher! She was one of only other 3 or 4 mothers of the school friends who worked! Outside of their homes! That too wearing 9 yards typical Maharashtrian Sari!

She went through a bad marriage, but as was economically independent, most of the time holding her head high. But that’s not for what I remember her every day. Being in the profession that deals with life and death every day, her life and her death too gives, me a solid platform to counsel the children in similar situation!

Bogged down by the heavy diabetes, and like every other diabetic, she too was very fond of food, especially sweets, so she used to go through her daily meals like unavoidable ablutions. Her sugars always lingered above 250 to 300 in spite of having MD doctor at home. Hypertension, the twin of diabetes too made its presence felt. To make the matters worse she had fracture neck femur, what we in our parlance call, as the beginning of the end fracture, and a woman who had a fond social life in Pune, in terms of going for movies, frequent outings for Marathi dramas, visits to book libraries, Bhishi parties with colleagues and friends, came to an abrupt end in Mumbai where we stayed, as she was unable to do anything of above, without having a chaperon which none of us could be, because of our own tight schedules. She though went through all this and recovered very fast, but started losing the zest for life. Once, maybe after collecting all her strength, she asked me,

‘Son, will I be normal again and do everything like before? Or will it be just existence, with crutches of these 20 or so tablets and medicines, I have to take just to be alive?’

Being frank and straight forward just like her, though, it did hurt me, I had to say’ Apparently yes mother, that’s what it’s going to be!’ Without a deep heaving sigh, she said very composedly with utmost cool,

‘In that case, I have decided to stop all the medicines!’

 Not much of discussion thereafter, but explaining every aspect of the decision in detail, we came to the conclusion that, we’ll continue only those medicines which may prevent her sufferings.

 ‘Then let’s select a date, Gudi Padwa is in the next week, I’ll stop all the medicines on that day’

As decided, she stopped all her medicines on the selected day and bid her farewell within a week, very peacefully keeping her head on my thigh and her grandson, my son, by her side, she left her body, as if going in for deep sleep, forever!

And that taught me what’s The dignity in death!