Many of us have comfort words, pictures, movies, food, songs and more often than none, even people. I’ve never been extremely fond of drawing, at least not comparatively but the need to move my pencil to give birth to shapes and not words often strikes me, rather randomly of course.
I suppose I was only in 6th or 7th when my dad decided to send me to a drawing class, possibly to somehow awaken my inner Abanindranath as well since my writing skills had significantly blossomed and improved. Needless to say, I’m not exactly gifted in the former department. So, our teacher would draw easy pieces of beauty, step-by-step to ensure we’d be able to grasp the entirety of the same and he was so patient with us, a jolly old fellow indeed. Sadly, his baldness humored me more than his instructions and even though painfully aware of the same, he never really scolded me or demotivated me for being so incompetent and not putting in enough efforts either, maybe he just wanted me to find an interest in his passion myself.
Simply put, I don’t remember the first class and I stopped going after only a few single numbered days however, I had managed to take away my comfort drawing from him, I’ll always be grateful for that.
He taught us how, on one fine day, to draw a castle. Starting from the middle part of the building where our protagonist would live under a beautiful tower hiding the sun (the moon in my drawings), protected by two other taller towers for security, beside the middle ground. I found utmost pleasure in sketching a thing as beautiful and magnificent as a castle. There’s so much pride in drawing your own dreams, no?
Since then, the castle happens to be the only thing I draw when I need to. Sometimes I add clouds, sometimes it’s raining. Often, the castle is floating on an endless ocean, occasionally, it is cloaked by the night (if I feel like it, I let a few twinkling stars light it up). It is high up in the sky sometimes, underground the other. But no matter what is happening around it, my castle remains the same- the same three towers, the same in-between because, I assume, it is a reflection of me and it assures me that no matter where I go and no matter where I am, I’ve been among the clouds and so, I shall wait for them again. It allows me to enjoy the darkness because I can always add my own stars when it gets too scary and tough. But most importantly, it makes me believe that wherever I go, as long as I stand tall no matter what place I’m in and no matter how many revolting colors I paint the inner walls with, I will always have myself.
And, really, isn’t that enough?
