Inside

Because its always good to let people know what exactly you thought originally while they make their own interpretations of your Abstract (Art)! 

You now what’s a mesh- it’s a chilman – a wall with checkered patterns giving you every glimpse of the other side of the wall but yet, closed! In Indian architectural history especially in Mughal era, the chilman has been used in profound! Take The Taj Mahal of Agra, all its beautifully marbled terraces surplusly surrounded by chilmaned railings. Go to Jaipur’s Maharaja Palace, the guide will show you a room – the common Darbar-e-aam where the king used to sit and hear the public and just besides the king’s hot seat you will find a chilman – opposite which the queen sat – from where she could see and hear everything what the pupil had to say and give her opinion to her husband, BUT the public couldn’t see her clearly and could only understand her presence via her reflection from her shadow filtered via that chilman!

Closer view: The MESH- Chilman

So that’s what a mesh is! A wall, mind you, it’s a WALL giving the pretense to be a window but a WALL, though with a difference by design and logic. I really think they had this great reason behind innovating such a beautiful pattern – the reason to be able to see everything from within and yet be hidden and away from everything. (I wonder if Film coated car window glasses were inspired from them too)

In any picture, a photograph or a painting, there are two things – basic- the object and the subject. In layman language, the subject is the living person and the objects are the materialistic things taken in use of to support the eventual meaning of that picture.

Closer view: Subject & Objects

Here the objects are simple yet lovable (read addictive)  items – the wine bottle, the coffee mug, an earthen ashtray with a few fumes of the still dying smoke inside it and a few flickering yet steady candles. And the subject, well the person finds it easier to hide behind the big fat belly of the wine bottle!

From all the detailed description above ( which I didn't really plan to), I will sum up my own comprehension of this piece in a single line-  Somebody inside a maze with everything he loves around him but yet can only enjoy a view of the outside and is trapped!

But traps aren’t always a negative word; some traps are by choice too! Do you remember any of those film stories where the mafia loses all his men and is terrified for his death and seeks shelter in a prison so that at least his life could be spared! Same!

Life is anyway a trap, a BIG BIG trap, but we all live inside it, enjoying the beautiful picture outside it via our chilmans of dreams and fascination! And off course surround ourselves with everything we love, to be able to survive till the day when the door opens and we walk out of it….!!

PS- I did not have any clue or intent as to what I will make when I started painting this one! But the bottle came on paper, then the mug, then the candles (they are actually books, though they don’t look like), the person’s half hidden face and then the rest! But it’s always interesting to add up all your scribbles to make a complete composition!

Technical PS- I used 7 different brush strokes in this picture!