The Heart of Art

After the Covid lockdowns lifted, friends who had settled abroad began returning to India, visiting family. I’m not the best at staying in touch, but there is one school friend who always calls when she’s in town, and we meet.

Back in school, this friend of mine was the first-rank holder every year, topper in every subject. A relentless winner — academics, drama, singing, debates. Years later, when I was there one evening, sitting in her mother’s living room, she pointed to an old trophy and laughed.

“This one has a story, remember?” she asked me.

Of course, I had forgotten, and so she reminded me. Back in school, she was good at almost everything, but the one thing she was not great at was drawing and colouring. That definitely was my forte. I was usually the one participating in all drawing competitions. So when this cartooning competition was announced, I was the first one to enrol; she didn’t really bother. But going alone to a competition would have been boring, so I almost forced her to participate. She agreed because the subject for the competition was already announced.

Now, the meticulous person that she was, she timed herself, decided what she was going to draw, practised, and the next day reached the venue fully prepared. I, on my part — the great artist that I was — came with a lot of ideas but no plan. Even after getting the paper, I chewed my pencil in half, deciding, imagining, drawing, and changing my mind a hundred times. When the time was up, my beautiful drawing indeed looked fabulous, but there was no time to colour it, and thus I submitted an incomplete piece.

My friend, on the other hand, finished hers just in time. And when the results were announced — to my utter disappointment and her delight — she won the second prize, and I didn’t win at all.

We laughed till our coffee went cold. She turned to her daughter and explained that talent and winning aren’t the same things. To win, you have to time yourself; you have to practise, she added. I smiled.

And the irony of it all — today I am the artist, and she is not. So of course, art is a totally different ball game, and it has nothing to do with winning. Picasso said you should learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

That is the freedom art gives.
Free-flowing expression.