Description
Humanity has always liked stories. From the walls of caves with stories of cattle, to entire libraries that fit into our palms, humankind has come a long way through history with the same sense of wonder about stories, intact. Indian Mythology is full of stories. The two main epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, have been told and re-told in myriad ways and artforms. They contain wonderous characters that guide us through their virtues and vices alike. Mahabharata is an epic with multiple avenues of interpretation, that looks completely enticing when being looked at, from the lens of gender. The key characters of Mahabharata are even more invigorating and inspiring when rendered in the female form, giving us a sharp sense of our own perspective, and a closer sense of identification with the story. This series, “Mahila Bharat”, a collection of paintings, is my humble attempt to marry the gorgeous characters of a common story we all know, and present it from a female frame of reference while parallelly addressing common social issues and emotions of the modern life we lead, as the female tribe of this planet.
“Bheeshma”
She sits with death.
Watching life
Or is it time she sits with?
I forget.
Folds and folds of age
On her body
Like fabric.
Timeless Water flowing
In all her viens.
Skin translucent
Like her mother.
She was awarded
Death.
Or is it time?
I forget.
At her beck and call.
She chose to delay death
For a prolonged
cosmic foreplay.
Caressing the arrows
Karma pierced her with.
Her killer
Her true love
Wore
Blue lotuses.
Sikandi followed her
Across time.
My death
My courage
My wisdom
My Bheeshma
Is a woman.
Because
I hold my
Blue lotus,
My Art,
My killer,
Who
Followed me across time,
For everyone
To see.
Like Bheeshma
I am a woman
Sitting with death
Watching life.
Or is it time I sit with? – Sitting with death. .
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.