Creating a painting for others and marrying a daughter feels alike.
Once back from the 45 days Bihar Jharkhand Artologue trip, we had a hard time coping with the fact that we will perhaps never see the paintings we did during the trip.
We and especially Meenakshi spent hours going through the same photographs from the last trip over and over again. Perhaps that was her way of compensating the physical distance between her works, whom she addresses as her children.
Amidst this hangover, we received an offer to paint in a wedding. An arranged marriage in Le Meridian, New Delhi, in which family members from both the sides from their ancestral village were to join in.
The offer was more of a request from the maternal uncle as he really loved his niece and wanted to gift her something unique on the on set of a new chapter of her life. We readily accepted the offer.
Creating an art work for some one else is like marrying your daughter away. Although both, the art work and daughter, remains closer to the heart, you can’t see then as often as you wish.
For the wedding, Meenakshi came up with the idea of treating the white base just as a maiden is treated and prepared for her new life. We spent two days in the narrow lanes of old Delhi looking for an appropriate cloth base, some glittery colours and a bridal kind of lace for the border of painting.
On the day of haldi and menhdi, the white cloth base was coated with a layer of haldi, just as a maiden is smeared and massaged with haldi. Due to its medicinal and ritualistic value, haldi or Turmeric it is a must in every Indian wedding.
Next when the menhdi-wala came to apply menhdi on the hands and feet of bride, Meenakshi along with other women applied glittery pearl colours on the yellowed fabric with the henna cone.
The use of henna cone instead of brush was the idea of Jey who believed that brush may sound a little alien to the household women while henna cone will be easy to handle and work with due to its familiarity. The trick worked and without any fuss all the gathered women started drawing their wishes and blessings on the yellowed fabric while Meenakshi drew the central intricate design.
On the day of engagement, the guests and mostly kids had a great time playing with henna colour cones and adding their designs to the painting.
Women from villages drew the traditional designs that are considered auspicious and Meenakshi continued to elaborate the central design. Jey had a tough time managing the kids, re-doing some messed up designs and an enormous peacock that was badly done by the mother of the bride.
Towards the end, the peacock edited by Jey looked very beautiful and out-shone other works by guest artists.
After the ring ceremony got over, the bride and groom drew their bit and ended up drawing themselves on the canvas. The father-in-law too got excited and drew a messy line work that Meenakshi edited out in the final phase of the painting.
On the day of the wedding, the canvas was decorated with bright bridal-kind of lace border and fine tuned for the final presentation. That day the painting did look like a bride, decorated all in bright hues and ready to don a new avatar.
It soon became centre of attraction and a selfie spot. Singles, couples and elderlies all joined the queue for a photo with the painting in background. Jey had a tough time controlling the excited crowd.
Later we too had a photo clicked with the painting, but we created the background for the painting.
That evening we bid a silent and smily good-bye to the painting knowing that we may not see it ever again..
