Kaagaz, qalam, dawaat

 A handwritten blogpost for Fountain Pen Day.

Retreating Mango

I was a bit unhappy that my father brought home bananas this morning but no mangoes! A week or two is all we have before the bounty retreats from our markets. A gorge of two, maybe three a day should keep us till next summer.

+++

What we get plenty of in Hyderabad is the luscious Banganpalle aka Benishan. A golden fruit, creamy pulp, almost without fibre and generous with size and flavour. S___, my neighbour and childhood friend is something of a mango connoisseur and has an arrangement with Ali, the fruitseller. Ali knows where to lay his hands on some of the rarer varieties, and when he gets a crate, he comes by. Does he holler his wares on the street, urging the populace to sample these exotic types? No sir, he does not. But discreetly he rings S__’s bell to sell him the story, and a few kilos.
And I benefit. When I see Ali’s skull-cap lurking in the garden next door, I make haste and pick up some too. Once it was the elegant, subtle Himayat and this time, it was Langra. A lime-green to leaf-green mango. It turns a reluctant shade of yellow when it ripens but that’s all. But the ripe flesh is a gorgeous orange and the pulp a touch astringent near the skin. It’s wonderful! I have a tub of those in various states of development but I still want a few Banganpalles while I can get them.

++++++

I learnt later that the Langra comes from regions around my beloved Banaras. As if I needed more incentive to love it.
But isn’t it strange that I should have loved Varanasi so? I have been there only once, and that was last year. Some old karmic connection, do you think? Have I lived in those gallis, bathed in the river, sat by the ghats as the sun went down? Or maybe the being is so mature, it could see at once (what I cannot see)... that it could perceive the magic of Kashi, the fount of spiritual input and infrastructure there? Or perhaps just a travel writer, whose imagination was caught by the spirit of an ancient, ancient city?

++++++++++

The Langra has inspired a colouring theme for my book. The page I’ve chosen is full of swirling leaves and fronds and I’ve decided to do the whole thing in greens and yellows. I have two sets of pencils to work with and one of them is a set of 48 water colour pencils. Mostly, I use them like colour pencils, but I’m going to use them here as water colours. Smudge the edges and corners darkly and brush the pigment inwards into paleness.
My other set is a fantastic array of straight colour pencils with beautiful names for each shade. Amethyst, Jade, Periwinkle, Plum, Pumpkin, Honey... how would it be if we had Kesar, Totapuri, Langra?

Colour me green

Have I confessed my deep desire to be artistic on these pages? I must have.

Anyway here’s the thing: I long to draw, paint and colour. Sadly, I am held back, seriously held back by a lack of talent. I stare at a blank page, tighten my grip on the medium at hand and invariably there will emerge – a tree. That is the culmination, the pinnacle of my creations. A gnarled tree, with a few branches, a knot in the middle and tapering roots. And, sadder still, it’s always more or less the same tree. I branched out slightly into coconut trees, but it yielded unsatisfactory results.

In some past life, I must have been surrounded by artists who, with a few magical strokes, could suggest and evoke whole worlds. I must’ve watched and admired, despaired of my own skill. Because I don’t have the imagination and I certainly don’t have the technique. Over my adult life, I’ve bought paints, brushes, charcoal pencils, shading pencils, illustration books... spent rather a lot of money on, as a friend once punned, ‘a paint hope.’

These two pencil shading landscapes from my learning book had convenient outlines that were dead useful as a structure. Perspective is everything!

And then adult colouring books happened. It was godsent. Now, with someone else drawing out the lines, all I had to do was colour within the lines. Now, this was well within my powers. And for a few years now I have enjoyed this – listening to music and poring over printed sheets of sketches. My blending skills have improved, I love using a mixture of water colours and pencils. Then I also bought Johanna Basford’s amazing book, Enchanted Forest. 

There are many such books now, but I absolutely love Basford’s whimsical, intimate rendering of imagined scenes. I bought myself a rather nice set of colouring pencils and I enjoy the whole process. That is to say, I did. Till yesterday.

I went to pinterest and instagram desultorily looking for finished coloured pages. Awe and angst in equal measure! What imagination, what skill! I hate these showoffs. They should be out there creating their own masterpieces. What are they doing in amateur circuits? Not only is their colouring spectacular, they fill up the white spaces around the illustrations with their own creations, and now alas, in her latest book Johanna has taken to leaving huge portions of blank space to leave scope for these. And WAIL, I don’t know WHAT TO DO WITH THEM!!!

Let me show you what I mean:

3D by night

Riot

He or She colours outside the lines! Fancy that.

All that inside stuff is the colorist's own tweak on this wreath

Let's add a story to that flower wagon

Brown fox in the deep wood.

Have you seen anything so beautiful?

Now I have to plod on with my own pitiful efforts. I don't know how I'm going to find the heart to carry on.