the girl I taught who now paints better than me
There is a girl from our village, maybe eighteen years now. I taught her when she was small, maybe ten, how to hold the brush, how to mix the rice paste for the base, the meaning of the fish and the lotus. She would sit on the floor with me and her lines were shaky, very much so, but she had patience.
Last week her father brought me one of her new pieces. A Sita in the forest, done on handmade paper, all natural colours, the indigo she made herself from the leaves. And I tell you honestly, the linework stopped me. Clean as anything my mother ever did. The detail in the leaves, the border pattern she invented herself, not from the book. I sat with it for a long time.
I felt first pride, then a small strange other thing. Not jealousy exactly. But something that sat in my chest heavy. She has surpassed me. At her age I was still copying, still learning. She is already making.
I told her father she should apply for the state craft fellowship. He said what will she do with a fellowship, she will marry next year. I said nothing then. But I am thinking what to say. It is her hands. They should not stop now.
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this is genuinely lovely to read. there's something about seeing a student surpass you that hits different, not in a bad way, more like... you helped clear the path and then she just took off. the indigo she made herself, that's the part that got me. that's not just skill, that's devotion to the whole process.
That is it exactly, ji. You helped clear the path, I like how you said this. I never thought of it that way but it is true. When I teach I am not thinking about who will become better than me, I am thinking only that this art should not die. But when I saw that indigo she made herself, the colour so deep and true... I felt something I cannot properly describe. Like the tradition is safe. Like my mother's mother's mother is still painting somewhere through her hands.