Shilpi was trying to think of something to draw and paint. She had been painting since her childhood. Even after she shifted to this town for studies and lived in a girls' hostel, she had kept alive her passion for painting.
After classes, when she walked back to the hostel, from the university, with theories of philosophy clogging her brain, she tried to refresh herself by looking around her.
The trees which lined the avenue till she would reach the gate of her hostel would then appear to her as beautiful companions. When the breeze would blow stirring the leaves of those trees, she would think they were talking about the meaning of life within themselves.
And the sky. It always stayed over her mind and soul.
'Ki ato anmona hoye bhabish bol to?' (What do think of so absentmindedly?)
Her friend Camelia would ask her.
Camelia had always clung to Shilpi since they had become roommates.
In Shilpi she found her alter ego, her confidante.
If the colours of spring would create a nascent rise of desire in her, Camelia would confide to Shilpi.
'Find a boyfriend...' Shilpi would say.
‘Boyfriend for me! The way I look, who would love me?’ Camelia would say.
'That's wrong...' Shilpi would say. 'For beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and also within you...'
'Bajey bokish na... (don't talk nonsense...) You're beautiful, you're studious, you're different...you would never understand my issues...Papa had said, soon after this course he would search a groom for me!' Camelia would retort.
'Why studying then?' Shilpi would counter.
'Yes...yes...but you know...how difficult is it to spend money on a course like this, which has little scope in our country...' Camelia would say.
'No branch of study is bad...there is a scope for everything...'
Shilpi would say, and start humming few lines from a song.
A Tagore.
'Tui dibbi achish...ki korey je emon bhabey thakish? (You're living it in such a carefree way...how do you do that?)’
Shilpi would smile.
Later in the evening, when the girls would go back to their rooms after gossiping on movies and boyfriends, Camelia would lie down on her bed, trying to make out what Socrates had tried to deliver to his disciples in the Symposium and Shilpi would take out her painting equipments.
Camelia would watch her through the corner of her eyes and say, 'Tomorrow SKD would take lessons on Socrates'.
'I know...' Shilpi would answer and start working on the sketchbook.
But today, she was not finding any inspiration. She kept on chewing the end of her pencil, thinking.
'Let it be...sit and study. It will do you good,' Camelia said.
Shilpi would look at Camelia and smile.
Just then her eyes fell on the portion of the late evening sky filled with stars and nebulas. A clear night sky with its boundlessness.
Shilpi just went up to the window and looked at the sky.
'How beautiful...' She thought.
Just then she heard the girls at the adjacent room listening to musical bandbox.
The late evening show.
And she knew it was a Don MacLean song that was being aired.
A Don MacLean.
Much like a song of Tagore.
She went back to her sketchbook smiling.
She got her inspiration.
She started moving her pencil on the sketchbook like she was not painting, but revealing her vision of a dream.
A Starry Starry night.
Camelia, finding Shilpi working, got up from her bed and came near Shilpi. She knew in Shilpi's works she would always find herself beautiful.
About the Author
Comments