Paintings, Paintings Everywhere

Paintings, Paintings Everywhere

I was in grade 5 when I spent most of my play time slaving over making a card for my teacher.

So excited the following morning I handed it over to her, only to go to the dustbin later in the day to sharpen my pencil and find it in there, cut up.

It broke my heart so bad I still remember that heartache and I never made a handmade gift for any teacher. Ever again.

Instead. I always made it for my daddy!

Who had this HUGE work desk of his and everything “important” went in there to be kept safe. Our artwork, my poems, my early writings, his EXPENSIVE art material that we would always drool over.

Uff. That desk was one of many highlights of our life.

We spent many summer afternoons huddled up under that table, playing, drawing, thinking! (yes. I thunk a lot even as a child.)

The dark grey chart paper was always my favourite. It was scarcely available back then and just always looked so regal. Lala’s (my dad) chart papers weren’t your flimsy sorts. These are harder, heavier. So wholesome.

And the nibs, pens and inks. With his calligraphy work, there was never a dearth of those. Ranging from bamboo pens to standalone nibs, Quink in an entire array of colours.

Dada jaan and I were more of the writing sorts. So we loved our Blue black. Lala has the reds and the greens and purples. Quink and then there were other brands that came in those fluted corrugated mini cartons. That felt like Water Color diluted out but a little more wholesome.

Reminiscing about my childhood is such a joy that I sometimes feel I will perhaps never be able to build as magical a place for my child.

But then I rewind and remind. I remind myself of the fact that the one thing we can do for our children is allow them to grow. To show them how to yearn to learn. Is the rhyming getting too cheesy? Totally not intended.

Unstructured playtime is perhaps the most underrated approach in modern day parenting.

Let the child be and see them flourish.

I will occasionally sit with her and play but usually it’s more of a commentary that I listen to while she is building her own playtime.

Result?

She paints on her own (and serious stuff that I truly want to frame and put up in the house and no one will even suspect that a toddler made this).

She decides what games she will play.

She decides what toy she needs next and build entire stories around them.

She will choose the books she wants to be read or read herself (she can’t exactly read yet but many books she knows by heart because she does bring books to us and we read them to her.)

Sure we play with her. Quite a few times a day but it’s hardly ever driven by us. SHE will drag us off the sofa and on your the floor to build with her blocks, to fix a tray full of goodies for her friends when the lockdown is over (new favourite game!) to sit and paint with her where all we do it wipe spills as she swishes and swooshes.

She leads us.

And I save every little bit of drawing she has made. Ranging from the pieces of ripped up page from Serena Hotel on which she drew a car that actually looked like a car! Or the latest monster drawings that she made and ran out of the room because it was too scaredy.

I do sneak in terms and conditions. I will give you paints if you let me tie your hair (big struggle since her hair is much longer and she loves her curls, she constantly wants to sport the extremely messy hair look) or if you will finish your bowl of fruit (how can a child with MY genes, be easy with eating? We collectively find eating a waste of time. Baking however is something both her and I LOVE indulging in)

I don’t care if I run out of space. I’ll buy storage if I need to.

I’m not letting her tiny dreams melt away in the kiln of time.

My little painter who can paint all day long and at midnight go “Painting kar saktay hein?” With her diamond studded eyes!