Sketching Lessons with Vigyan

Sketching lesson with Vigyan: man talking on phone while walking:

• How to start abstract and add details as you go.
• How to detect and correct mistakes before they can spoil the drawing
• How to make the figure look natural
• How to ensure that the final strokes are confident and accurate
• How to shade

ELEPHANT RIDE IN THEKKADY

During our recently concluded trip to Kerala, Vigyan (my son), Vidyut (my nephew) and I were taking the very hyped elephant ride in Thekkady. At a very graceful and sedate pace, the cute, little and very beautiful elephant named Lakshmi took us through a very green spice garden. In between she wanted to do the very natural thing of taking a trunkful of dust and spraying it on herself. But for this, she got a very harsh beating on her legs from her Mahout that made her cry out in pain.

Vidyut, a perceptive and sensitive young boy, said that we shouldn't be doing this kind of thing, and that all this was wrong, For me, his saying so was quite moving. I told him that it made me happy that he's grown up to understand this, and that even though there doesn't seem to be much we can do about that right at that moment, it would definitely influence his attitude and treatment towards animals in future.
To this, Vigyan (with no touch of sibling/cousin rivalry) said: "What's there? Even I understand that all this is cruel and wrong."
I was very impressed. I patted him: "Good, I am proud of you, my son."
"Yes," Vigyan said. "And that's why, on growing up, I will only do horse-riding," he finished off in style.

Thoughts on Father's Day

My father excelled as a father.

• He allowed me to become what I had the potential to be.
• He gave me all the advices he had, good or bad, but to his best capabilities.
• He supported me materially while I needed his support.

I failed as a son.

• I left them back there in Nagpur 'to make it big in life.'
• 'I am not beside them' when they are ageing and getting afflicted with diseases.
• I have turned into a doting husband, father and a good person 'without staying a doting son.'

I am indeed a doting father, and yesterday on the Father's Day, if I related to that day, it was as a father more than as a son. And here are a few things I can say about how I plan to be a good father:

• I will allow you to become what you have the potential to be.
• I will give you the material support.
• I will always be with you morally.
• The gist of my love for you is that I will always want you to be happy, wise and successful.
• I will show my emotions to you.
• I will not pretend to you to be stronger, wiser, richer, more liberal than I actually am.
• I will not appeal to my authority to make you behave in a particular way.
• I will lead a life of my own to the last day. I will be true to myself as much as to you.
• I will not behave well just because I want you to behave well.
• I will not make my fatherhood appear as a sacrifice for you.
• I will not expect purchased gifts from you.
• I will not expect you to be by my side in my old age.
• I will feel happy when you become a good husband, father and person, because that's what you are here to be.
• I will celebrate the fact that you are an individual who is not the same as me.

All I will every expect from you is to know that I love you from the bottom of my heart. My love for you is not because I have played a role in your being born, but because I have closely observed you grow into a person from a little bundle in my arms on January 24, 2009.

Please just give this much. Please never ever doubt that I love you and want nothing else from you!

A Day Stolen from Childhood

(Welcome the 250th post on this blog!)

Yesterday was Vigyan's first day at Christ Academy as an LKG student. We were there in the first few moments. The assembly. The prayer. The national anthem. The news, the thought-for-the-day, the saavdhan-vishraam. The school parade-band. While Vigyan stood awestruck and overwhelmed, Shilpi and I stood with millions of memories of our childhood flooding in. The happiness and nostalgia, too intense to be expressed in words, found its outlet through a big lump in the throat and a moment of dampness in my eyes. 

Who says the childhood, gone once, never comes back? We live it day by day, through our child.

Related:

Photo album
Fall of the Hero
Poem for My Beloved Son
The Day the School Reopens
The Dark Night