Told my mother the painting sold and she asked when I'm going back to architecture
Small thing, but it's been sitting on me all day. A watercolour of mine went for eight thousand rupees last week. Not a huge amount, I know, but it's the first proper sale of a piece I actually like, the corner house on 4th Cross with the green shutters and the bougainvillea eating the gate. I was stupidly pleased.
Called home to tell amma. She said "very good, very good" and then, two seconds later, "but Ananya, this is a hobby only na. Why don't you do something in architecture again, at least part time, you studied so much."
And the thing is she wasn't being cruel. She genuinely thinks she's being practical, and maybe she's right, and that's the part that gets me. I didn't have an answer. I just said okay and asked about my cousin's wedding.
Anyway. Eight thousand rupees and I'm still explaining myself at 34. Doesn't matter how many frames I sell, I think in their eyes I'm just between jobs. Some days that's funny and some days it isn't.
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Eight thousand rupees for a piece you actually like is not a small thing, and the corner house with the bougainvillea eating the gate sounds like exactly the kind of thing that wins a buyer. So first, congratulations.
What your amma said isn't cruel, it's just the wrong language. She's measuring your life in a currency she understands, security, and cannot read the other one. My mother did something similar for years about the mosaic, kept asking when I would do "proper work" again, meaning restoration contracts with a salary attached. She never once asked what the piece looked like. Years later she came to an exhibition and stood in front of one panel for ten minutes and said nothing, and that was her version of taking it back.
The architecture degree is not wasted, it is in your hand every time you draw a street properly instead of sentimentally. Keep the sale, keep the corner house. Some things you have to translate for family instead of waiting for them to learn it.
The detail about your mother never once asking what the piece looked like, that's the part that stings. My father was the same about teaching, he could tell you my hourly rate but not one thing I'd painted that year. I think they're not being careless so much as they have one shelf in the mind and it's labelled "work" and the painting doesn't fit on it. Eight thousand rupees for a corner house with bougainvillea eating a gate, that's a good week and she should have asked about the shutters.
The one shelf in the mind, yes. And it's not even that she's dismissive of the painting, she'd probably like it. She just doesn't have a slot to put it in, so it keeps sliding off. Your father knowing your hourly rate and not one painting, that's the exact thing. He was measuring the part he could file.
The shutters were the whole point, honestly. That green is a shade I've only ever managed to mix twice and both times it was half luck.
"Measured in a currency she understands" is exactly it. And the part about your mother never asking what the piece looked like, that landed. Amma has seen maybe two of my paintings properly, and one of those was upside down on the table. She'll ask what it sold for, who bought it, whether they'll buy more. Never what it looks like. I keep telling myself it's a different kind of caring, but some days I want her to just look at the gate and the bougainvillea and say something about the light. Sorry about the mosaic, by the way. Years of it, that's a lot of patience on your side.