And I met Howard Roark...

We were sitting in Cafe Purple (with the only shade of purple to be found in my jacket!!!)  in Auroville village. The perfect weather dictated us to sit in the open section of the Cafe. For past twenty days, we (me and my friend 'Akka') are on an experimental mode i.e. to not have any food items that contain onion or garlic. Apparently, it is believed that quitting onion and garlic enhances one's ability to concentrate and meditate better (the funny part is that none of us are either meditating or doing anything material these days for which we need to concentrate hard...lols). Anyways, we were served our handsome Paneer butter masala. But in a while, we discovered that our awesome Paneer butter masala had onion and then what, the usual happened. The poor waiter was called and thrashed (oopsy sorry...) by us.

After the waiter left, we suddenly heard a voice, "Why do you guys not eat onion and garlic?". It was only in that moment that we realized that we had a silent neighbour. Our conversation with our neighbour started with food and it progressed further quickly. She was called Tanya. Later, Tanya told us that she was an artist (the super cool Tanya works 'only' when she needs money, while in all other times she loves to paint). She joined an 'Arts School' to formally learn painting but decided to drop out of school after three months as the school did not find her painting style very appealing. Her suffocation at the Arts School made her choose the way of learning art in Eklovya's style (learn from the best from a distance with full 'shiddat'!!!) That's what makes her spend more time in Auroville where she could meet artists from all over the world and learn various styles and techniques of painting 'without spending a penny'. She was blatant enough to admit that she loves stealing the styles and techniques of other artists only to mould them into Tanya's style of art.

Suddenly our 'unnoticed' neighbour became my like my star ideal, my Howard Roark ('Fountainhead' without Howard Roark is like a temple without an idol!!). Howard Roark too was a man who dropped out of Architecture School because just like Tanya's ideas, his ideas were also not acceptable to the conservatives. I am glad that I met this girl who seemed to be in love with oil paints, who humanizes the idea of red passion, whose world is so different from mine, who may easily go unnoticed but definitely not forgotten, whose frustration for amateurs claiming to be artists was right there at the surface, who gave me a new definition of 'unlearning' and then 'learning', whose idea of conviction seemed so compelling. I am glad that I had that little conversation because for the first time, it gave me a reason to believe that all our fantasy characters whom we idealise day in and day out 'do' exist in reality. This little conversation gave birth to a small (but beautiful...) desire in me - to be a character in some Fountainhead, somewhere, sometime... Inshallah!!!

This 'little' desire is strong enough to make us all work in a direction that we really idealize... Think about it!!!

Cheers,

Hena