Mirage

She spread the canvass and started slowly running the brush swiftly like she is experiencing touching the first dew drop on the glass blades with her bare foot. It took her time, to comprehend the feeling, the wind from mango groves just passing by her with mist. ..and there she goes. .empty!!. To make an art You should have it in you...all the world inside you. The seasons. The birds, the living and nonliving, butterflies, glow worms, stars. ...moon and the churning ocean.

What was she lacking, she could not do it any more. It looked grey and pale each picture like, some one or some thing took away the colors from it. Like some one drank off the life in it. It represented her life, lonely and miserable. 

She left it there and sat on the small window pane of Attic. She tried to remember where did and when did her works started seeming such faded portrayals.

She wanted to leave that thought and wanted to move away in to some other thought. But she felt empty. That was the time she thought she would go to the temple fair. The whole month of Christmas, is a celebration in her town. The whole old city would shine in a new hue and glory then. People would get dressed up ,and walk through the streets. The loud noises of vendors, the balloons, the bangle shops, the small side way circus. Her city would look like a young bride, or a dancer or what not. ..

There is no night nor day, it is a festival and tourists would arrive from all parts of the world.

She wanted to visit the bangle shop. She loved anklets and glass bangles. She felt it made tingling noise that evoked joy and mirth..It  had the power to make her the author she wants to be and also the artist she wants to be.

She walked towards the bangle shop at the corner of the street.It was the third day of the main festival and it would end in about 7 days. She never liked to look at the empty streets after the festival. It took her days to come off that despondency .

The streets had the fragrance of night lillies that are yet to bloom, the smell of sweets and hot chillies fried in gram flour.

Her eyes suddenly fell on the shop where there was no much crowd.She tried to look inside it was art coloring paint shop, there was a man, he was busily drawing a sketch of some kind and, she walked in, he did not see her, he was too immersed in the work. She watched him draw with ease and poise of a very gifted artist. He had long fingers which were very ardent and well sculpted.

He just turned back almost startled when he heard her pondering through different oil colours. She checked the oil pestle and then water colors. She apologized for being there with out his knowledge. Their eyes met and it stayed for a while. They felt each were gazing in to others soul.He was so familiar that was how she felt. .a some one she lost and found.

"No body comes here much:, he said "only people with genuine interest and aptitude comes."

She smiled.."Are you an artist?"...she smiled. .again to his question

"Kind of amateur..."She told 

He left his canvass and approached her to help her.

"What are you really looking for ?"

She said "I really don't know. ..I will return tomorrow. "

She left the shop and walked back home. She was feeling guilty She did not buy a thing. .already the man was not having any customers.

She decided to visit the shop the next day.

When she got ready, she remembered the artist she did not ask his name nor did he enquire her name. They were people with gypsy spirit. ..his eyes, decisive nose, thin lips that were beautiful when he smiled. She wore her saree with golden yellow border and kept a golden bindhi while getting ready. She put the Kashmiri khol in her eyes and they shone with a new glow in them

She walked briskly to the shop. Her face was covered with sweat drops She tried to wipe with sarees upper fleets corner, the pallu. The sandal wood paste got smeared in sweat and it made her look more pretty.

He was almost waiting for her, atleast his body language conveyed so...He looked frantically bit while he told "thought you won't come. "

She smiled.

"Will you sit, I can make a sketch of you. ""Such beauty has to be captured or else is an injustice to art. .."she smiled again when he told 

"Sit, I do it for tourists "He told again

She sat at that deliberation and he started drawing her. She could feel his fingers and eyes flowing through her, It was like listening to beautiful note. ..a raga she has never heard.

She was in her world while she got up with his voice 

"How do you like it ?"

She looked at her portrait. She told "Beautiful, beautiful than me "

"It is you. ...like a magician  she told 

He smiled

She told ",my drawings and paintings , they are fading , it is like they are on the grey side. Like a winter has affected them. ..they lost. ..the glow the texture. .."

"We will find you colours ",he told 

That evening when she returned her canvass had the brightness, , light pink looked more dark, fading blue looked more deep.

She met him every day, since then...

Her drawings started coming alive she learned from him emotions have colours; happiness -yellow, love -pink, sadness- blue, hope -green and then she learned a touch could be orange red, a kiss the colour of ocean, an embrace so red 

 Passion and perfection flew through her veins and it was expressed in her art, her sketches, paintings, poems.

He filled her vacuum with lines and curves and she felt complete and just blossoming like a new bud of night Lilly herself. She looked at the moon and saw his face. ..She even realised astral dreams had crystalline colours.

On the tenth day she walked to the ground and found there was no shop, nor any colours there .It was just abandoned. She wanted to ask the near by shop keepers but she did not know his name.

Yet she walked to the bangle shop and asked for the colour shop and the artist. .they asked her the" old man's shop, he left to his village some body important died."

"Poor man" people told, "did not earn much. ."

"No. .the young artist "...she asked in almost her eyes swelled up in tears 

"What are you talking sister, "the bangle shop man asked "Are you really okay, there was no boy, we never saw one. "

"May be customer. .".he told 

She told no. .the man who made sketches..

They told "are you nuts sister, "that was bit rude and she wanted to run home and cry.out. She almost struggled  and managed to get back home.

But when she reached home, she slowly fondled the colours...who was he, she did not know. ..but since then her paintings were so full of life, deep, meaningful 

She still kept searching every festival for the colourshop and Man with long fingers and his colours 

....He was a mirage. ..a mirage with a gift in it. Her paintings were much appreciated and her poems too...forever, filled with him...!!