The little Girl Who Learned to Draw......

This is a story of a girl who believed that she could create. It started at home when she drew silly images of flowers and animals on paper. And it continued in school when she was taught how to paint half of an onion and make pretty prints out of it. At home she brought it to another level.

Not satisfied with just onions, she used both her hands, dipping it into wall paint (yeah wall paint!) and pressed her hands gleefully on paper. And her handprints adorned the floor as well. She got spanked for that as well. Maybe as a child she understood better that Creativity exceeds Boundaries.

She adored the way her mommy drew. The fine strokes her m of a pencil that turned fast into many forms filled her with envy. Her mommy had a special way of adding colour to them that no one she has ever met till date could do the same. She was so proud of her mommy. She made her mommy draw her art work given in school and show it off proudly to her classmates. Everything her mommy did left an impression on the little girl's heart. Almost everything.

She stood there intrigued as she watched her mommy draw beautiful designs on the floor outside their home. Her mommy introduced those to her as 'Kolam'. In northern part of India, they call it the Rangoli.
While mommy is busy in the kitchen, she will sneak into her room and take out mommy's book filled with a wide collection of designs and browse it will quietly acquired bliss.

She ran her fingers through the pages and fall in love with each one of them. She wanted to draw just like her mom.

As she got a little older, she started experimenting with it all by herself. Not with flour but with chalks. Beginners stick to the chalk first. Her first Kolam was a lotus. The easiest she felt. She will draw more intricate ones, once she grows up, she told herself. And so she did. She won the first prize in secondary school with her best friend as her partner and beamed with pride as she showed her mommy her prize.

She desired to create more. She went on to explore other avenues of art. She was not doing well as she wanted to cause the emphasis and motivation given to academic success wasn't endowed much upon to art.

Her life got too busy for art as well. With all those stuff to be done to keep her ahead of the rat race, there wasn't time. With all those guys, dance, music and social drama to give attention to, there wasn't time. With a start of a career soon after graduation, there wasn't time. With so much time spent at the office and hanging out with friends all the time, there wasn't time.

No time to draw. No time for colour. No time to create. No time to live a little through art.

That girl WAS me.