Ink and watercolour
Arches cold press watercolour paper 300 gm
26 x 36 cm
With great trepidation she starts the very first day of her new life
Yet Her face is aglow
Her cheeks blushing crimson
Her eyes sparkling like precious stones , emerald and diamonds
She is breathtaking in her green lehenga
She is gorgeous
She is radiant
Today she shines brighter
than the jewels on her hair
-words and watercolor painting by JMKhapra
Kalpana, bride no. 1, Indian Bride Series
copyright 2013 JMkhapra
The old do envy the young indeed! These budding blossoms primed for the adventures of life. Their first kisses, first heartbreak and first love thrills. Awakening to truth and clarity is not far behind. Some will embark on a futile search for the meaning of life. Then in frustrations will hurl infinite questions that have no answers. Oh the passions and the disillusionments that will oscillate their body and souls. Those were my thoughts as I gazed upon an elderly lady from across the flat who was watching wistfully the young girls playing in the park. Three generations of women, the past, present and future, we were like the circle of life representations.
Quite frequently in the afternoons I see her sitting elegantly in her balcony. Her dignified head titled slightly. I could see she must have been very beautiful once. Her features are regal. An arrogant nose softened by doe like eyes.
I often made up stories in my head about her past. Of how this aristocratic personage had fallen in deep destitution. Their flat was the shabbiest among the colony. Paint chipping off the wall. Undusted windows and lopsided walls.The abode is decorated with lonely ornaments of neglect. A stark contrast to her constant well heeled appearance. My imagination led me to a possibility that she maybe born into nobility. A princess who was dethroned in a bitter twist of fate. She eloped with a poor man, perhaps? I am always amused seeing her with royal bearing alighting from her beat up Maruti Suzuki as if she’s stepping out from a golden carriage. Lifting her shimmering floor length Shalwar Kameez gracefully, she would ascend the stairs as if on the top a throne was waiting for her.
Telling stories has always been a way of expressing my self, my beliefs and my feelings. I found that it can a drive a point more effectively than a long rhetoric. Stories have won me many friends when I was a kid. Especially horror stories. Kids like to scare themselves silly. I can have them cowering under the covers after I am finished. And since I love to read at a young age I never run out of tales to tell. And now that I am grown up I am happy to share stories I wrote myself. Though I remember having written a short novel when I was in highschool in one of my notebooks. My classmates read it and passed it around. I knew then that I wanted to be a writer. So thank you for sparing a minute or two from your busy lives and stopping by at my page to read some tales I’ve written. You bring a smile to my face. 🙂
My dream is to become a master story teller. From whom words will flow smoothly like water from an eternal spring. And everyday of my life I am working on that.
©JMKhapra