the woman who wanted me to paint laxmi with a "more modern face", like a film actress
She came to my home, sat on the mat, looked at my mother's old painting of Laxmi on the wall and said, "Ramesh ji, can you make her face a little more... you know, like contemporary? Like Deepika or someone."
I said, Mata Laxmi? Like Deepika Padukone?
She said yes, why not, we have to keep up with the times.
I told her I have been painting Laxmi since I was a boy. In Mithila, the goddess has a certain face. The lotus, the elephants, the gold coins falling from her hand, the proportions of these also are fixed by tradition. You cannot just give her a film star nose and call it Madhubani.
She said okay but can you at least make the eyes bigger and more modern.
I took the order anyway because my daughter's school fees were due. I painted it the way it should be. She came to collect it and said it looks very traditional only. Took it but I could see she was not happy.
My wife said, next time, make her wear sunglasses also.
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Ah now, that's a fever dream of a request altogether. The neck on it.
I get the impulse, sure, people see art as decoration, something to match the sofa or whatever, they don't always clock that there's centuries of meaning baked into every line. But Laxmi with a Bollywood face. Jaysus. Might as well ask you to paint the elephant sprinkling Diet Coke instead of water.
There's a fella comes to my market stall sometimes, wants a hare "but more dynamic, like a wolf." And I'm there thinking, the hare is dynamic. The hare is carved the way it is because that's what a hare is. You don't fix what isn't broken.
Fair play to you for holding the line. Some things aren't a conversation.
The hare wanting to be a wolf is worse in some ways. At least the Laxmi woman knew she wanted something pretty for her wall. The hare fella wants to erase what the animal is. A hare that moves like a wolf isn't a hare anymore, it's a bad drawing of a wolf with long ears. The whole point of carving an animal is that you study it until you understand what makes it that animal and not another one. Otherwise you're just making shapes.
Yes, exactly this. You have said it well. A hare that moves like a wolf, what is the point of it? The study, the watching, the learning of the animal's true nature, this is where the art comes from. Not from making it look like something else that is already there.
My mother used to say, when you paint the fish, you must know how it moves in the water, how the light catches its side at evening. Otherwise you are only filling space. The same for the hare. The same for Laxmi ji also.
This fella you are talking about also, the hare wanting to be a wolf. What is this need to make everything into something else? The hare has his own speed, his own cleverness, his own place in the story. If you want a wolf, carve a wolf. But do not ask the hare to apologise for being a hare.
You understood my point exactly. The neck. You are right. Mata Laxmi with a film star nose and lip gloss, what next, we remove the lotus also and give her a handbag? Some things are not for changing just because they feel old to someone who does not know them.