Stories From December 2023
By Anshul Pangti
I once had a very troubling dream where I was seeing a woman...
I once had a very troubling dream where I was seeing a woman goddesses face who was furious as hell. I couldn’t understand why my mind was troubling me so much. Maybe because I am feeling fearful about my future, the uncertainty of it. Or maybe I am trying to recall the stories that I have heard when I was young but not able to exactly remember the story. I was unable to point to one answer and that made me feel a little lost. And thus, somehow some things are just left unresolved. Years later I was walking in the Crafts Museum in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
And to my surprise I saw a wooden sculpture of the Hindu goddess Durga who looked exactly the same face that was troubling in my dreams! I read the label, and thought to myself, wow! a tribe made this, that too so long ago! And here it is sitting inside a museum, utterly ignored. I quickly took a snapshot of it to tell my friends about this but hesitated.
After all this might sound interesting to me but not to others simply because it's not what they are experiencing at this moment. And thus, some stories remain untold.
By Saydeep Singh
After having a good experience with expressive arts...
After having a good experience with expressive arts therapy workshops I was intrigued to try it again during 2019. I was going through an issue and wasn't able to contain my emotions or take care of myself. I attended this month-long experience, which was about knowing self through expressive arts. And one of the exercises was to dab our fingers in paint and create a painting.
This was the first time I did something like this, I was surprised how unique this experience felt, and how much relaxing painting through fingers felt, being all messy and unstructured on how to go about the painting.
After the session we all showed our paintings and the facilitator and the members of the group said 'Waow this looks so amazing.' I couldn't understand how they were able to appreciate such a basic painting but I thought to myself maybe they are being appreciative because we have been together for 2-3 weeks now and are being nice to me. I was so surprised that I couldn't even say thank you or respond to their compliments, I was just mum.
After a few good experiences with expressive art therapy...
I decided to learn to paint. Now from where shall I begin? I was confused but my younger sister came to the rescue. She told me about this famous painter Bob Ross who teaches how to paint step by step and I don't even need that much materials for it! Just a few brushes, a few primary colours and voila I can begin!
Now of course buying an easel and canvas would be a bit expensive but I like all other Indians did what we do the best. Which is 'jugaad' so I taped a few sheets on my wall and then painted over those A4 sheets. I kept at least two sheets to make it a bit thick so that the paper doesn't get torn due to water.
And I couldn't believe what a relief I felt while I was brushing vigorously over the paper to create the sky effect or while painting the mountains. It just felt like all my stress was melting away and on top of that I wasn't even aware that I was feeling that much stress! It was a really amazing experience but just like any new thing that we learn I was facing more failures than successes while drawing these beautiful paintings.
I wasn't able to have that level of concentration that I had while making this painting. All in all I messed up 4 paintings and only one painting, the one I have uploaded above seemed good enough. I wish I hadn't given up but at that time I was really sad and just felt like I am wasting money on colours because I wasn't able to create any good enough paintings :')
Link to the painting tutorial: https://youtu.be/RInDWhYceLU?si=RXKS7BvAlObn4TkQ
*typing* *typing* *typing*...
Have you ever felt that you are losing all your memory while doing something? I remember once I was travelling by metro and I was using my phone quite mechanically. And I felt as if I am there doom scrolling and not really fully there, or aware of the content I am consuming. At the same time I felt a little lightness on the back of my head and felt as if something is moving out of my head like something immaterial like memories are fading away from me.