The fish used to come easy, now my hand hesitates
Since I was a small boy I am drawing the fish from the left border, the one that carries the boat in the Saptami story. My mother taught me the kachni line for the scales, one breath, no lifting the brush. Now I sit down with a fresh sheet of Sajji paper and my hand stops at the tail. It comes out stiff. The line is correct but the fish has no life, no swimming.
I thought it was age, my eyes, but yesterday my granddaughter watched me and said, "Dada, why you are drawing so slowly?" And I had no answer for her.
I am wondering if it is the show I did last month in Patna, where they wanted my fish bigger and my colours brighter for the city wall. Or maybe when you paint for money only, something closes inside. Has anyone else felt the hand forget a thing it has done since childhood? Not the skill, that is there, but the sureness. How do you get back the sureness?
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This hit me somewhere, honestly. I know exactly what you mean about the line being right but the life missing. I make these hand-built vessels and there's this one shape I've thrown a hundred times, it used to come out of me without thinking. Lately I catch myself measuring, double-checking the curve, and it comes out dead. Correct but dead.
I don't think it's age. I think it's the show in Patna. When people start watching your hand, when they name what you do, something shifts between you and the work. The fish stops being a fish and becomes a performance. Your granddaughter might have said it better than she knew, you're not drawing slow, you're drawing careful. And careful kills the swimming.
What's helped me when I lose a piece to my own hesitation is doing it badly on purpose. Not trying for the line, just letting the brush find it again without anyone watching, even me. Ugly fish. I've made a lot of ugly fish this month. But one of them swam.
That kachni line, one breath, no lifting, that was never technique. That was trust. It's still in your hand somewhere. The show just made you look at it too hard.
That bit about measuring, double-checking. I know it. I work in collage, mostly found paper, and the good pieces come when I trust the tear. The moment I start planning where the edge should land, it lands wrong every time.
I don't think it's the show either. I think it's the watching, like you said. The fish becomes something that has to be right instead of something that just swims.
Your granddaughter might be the best critic he's got. Kids don't see the lineage or the exhibition, they just see whether the fish moves.
Yes, the watching. You have said it also. When my mother was teaching me, she never stood behind me to inspect. She would sit at her own corner and sing the old song, and I would hear her brush moving in rhythm with mine. Nobody was looking, so the fish could swim.
You are right about the granddaughter too. She does not care what Patna thought. Yesterday I let her sit on my lap and I put my hand over hers, slow, and we drew the tail together. And do you know, ji? It had life. Not because of me. Because she was laughing and the fish was just a fish again.
Collage man, I respect that you trust the tear. Our whole art is the same. We do not correct, we cover and repaint, the mistake becomes part of the story. Planning is for the sign painter, not for us. Maybe I will stop measuring for a few days and let the fish be wrong. It may swim better for it.
You have said it exactly, ji. "The fish stops being a fish and becomes a performance." That is the thing I could not name for myself. When the people in Patna were clapping and asking me questions, I was feeling very proud, but also something was sitting heavy in my chest that I did not understand. Now I think it was this only.
It is strange that a vessel and a fish should meet in this way, from your hands and mine. A hundred times you have thrown that shape, and now you are measuring. I also am measuring. We are both watching ourselves like we are someone else.
My granddaughter's question, she is seven years old, she does not know she has caught hold of a big thing. Children see without the show and the applause. Maybe I should sit with her and let her watch me, not for anyone else, not to sell, just to show her what my mother showed me. Some life may come back into the fish that way.
I thank you for this. It is a comfort to know another hand is also hesitating, and it is not age only. What do you make, if I may ask? Your vessels, are they for water, or for the Gods, or for nothing but beauty?