Invitation to my solo Painting exhibition

I, Nidhi Tripathy, invites your cordial presence at my solo painting exhibition...

Random Thoughts

at

Chemould Art gallery

Queen's Mansion,12F Park Street

Kolkata-700016

Exhibit runs: 9 April 2011 to 13 April 2011

Art gallery hours:2pm to 7pm

My early canvases were my classwork and homework notebooks,exhibition hall: principals office.The elaborate work in primary classes (with the patience and perseverance of my teachers) shrunk to the last pages scribbles and margin decorations, but it compelled my teachers to allow me to bunk boring classes and go on excursions called inter school competition.One prize which I still remember is the Nehru Bal Samiti, which perhaps is lying around somewhere but the fate of most others,have been similar to a lost file, under any sarkari babu's desk. But one thing which the babu couldn't sit on, was the passion to paint.Neither the formal economics nor legal education could decay the fascination with colours.The civil services exam (UPSC) did manage to keep my brushes away from my reach for couple of years, but the job fueled the craving and the etch in the fingers.Most of my works are spontaneous,without any rough sketches or planning.I pick up my palate only when words fail me.I try to translate the thoughts of the subconscious on the canvas and ease my pain of being gagged but it would be the first time that I will know, if they communicate to others.Most of the time I found myself picking up oil paints,perhaps because the oil paints need no medium.It can be independently used on the canvas,direct from the tube, the feeling of freedom and independence is intoxicating.The feel of the paint on the canvas is so smooth and engulfing that the canvas losses it's identity under the opaque coverage,a very comfortable vent for my otherwise gagged expressions.

Raat yun teri dil mein...

Raat yun dil mein teri.. khoi hoi yaad aayi,
jaase virane main chupke se bahar aajaaye,
jaase sehra mein hoole se chale baadenaseen,
jaase bimaar ko behvajaah karrar aa jaye.....faiz

ultimate poetry... 4 lines summarizes every thing one feels when one feel anything for someone..20 years ago when I first heard these lines in a pak TV play dhoop kinare.. the same words had very different effect on me when I hear it today.. strangely tears rolled down and a big hole in the heart gapes larger for what and why I am unable to understand..Life in dynamic and everything changes, the meanings, place, context and people.The lines invokes pain today. Perhaps 'cause when today I close my eyes there is no yaad ... just a big blankspace.. no bahaar walks in .. no umeed tooo. the veeraana gapes and expands... sehra gulps baadenaseen.. and bimaar perhaps is on the death bed. 20 years ago there was a hope, a sketch and a frame which I thought time will fill in... the bahaar will engulf the veerana from all sides...

Marina khan....and faiz

After almost 22 or more years I saw marina khan on you tube. Marina khan is not just an actress in ptv but symbolizes everything pleasant and romantic in life. I remember in my school days, despite being in India and with limited access of media, hardly anyone in my generation had missed dhoop kinare and tanhainyaan.. for many years, when ever I got depressed and wanted to feel young again I watch her plays.She has kind of become part of me.. Seeing her after such a long break on youtube interviews.. aged but still the same was so thrilling as if one lost part has become alive again.. a constant spring of zeal and happiness and she successfully transmits that to others combined with faiz raat yun teri... is just inexplicable..may god bless her

Living other's life, sharing their happiness

I moved through the wilderness of life, mostly desert and entered a virtual world by accident called facebook and landed in oasis.I met people who once traveled with me 20 years ago and most of them were living on the land on the other side of the river, lush green. peeping in their lives, gave me a very pleasant motivation and happiness within, as if I am living all those lives one by one through the pictures they posted. Best part was...one need not say hi to any of them and thanks to the bad programing most of the time the passer by like me goes unnoticed, but, in return I blessed and wished them real well from the bottom of my heart. Today I realize what narcotics must be doing.. a false life and a lovely high. But I realize that I am not the only one, perhaps the only one to admit though.Else the games like farmvilles would not have been such a success..

The Limca add...sharatein hain...

Have you seen the latest add of limca... fortunately I did..

For a long time now,I have been believing that nothing in this world can excite or make that dead spring of happiness sprung again, no romance in life left,with a battered body and even more battered soul and spirit, the possibility was not only remote but far from possible. but fortunately, I saw the limca add..

The add had a very pleasingly mysterious effect on me.. it invoked a delhi colony nostalgia. Pushed the cork off the fountain of thrill, excitement and pure romantic happiness in me. With every splash of limca .. bursting clothes, the door and finally the bike.. stirred a new cocktail of feelings.Simple happiness and simply inexplicable.The door and the roof had the smell of that sondhi mitti of my childhood house,the door was so familiar, the gates of the house so welcoming and the houses so homely, I feel like living in them.The mosaic, the guy falls on, reminds me of the childhood mosaic I used to play ikal dukal at home with my friends. And the romance between the couple and happiness they share in their eyes.. the love in every splash are the adolescent bubbles of future expectations...... strange how some bubbles of one 20 rupees drink can splash childhood and adolescence romance in me, making me feel 16 again..yeh sharatein hain..

What if I knew, That I am the only truth....

Quest to know this world and oneself has been there since time immemorial... I wonder what this world be like, if we earnestly believed in one truth... "I am the truth... the life is only me, nothing before me and nothing beyond me..."
Perhaps the the greatest dent will be embedded in human relations ... for such a person, every person will be a means to attain his/her ends....won't care any less..
a prelude to a short story

life is beautiful

I used to think that God was confusing and confused, but now at least I am confirmed on one thing , that, it is true for at least his creations....
Just when you thought the life has finished... nothing remains to wish for, a new sky comes up.. a new light... brighter than the last... beautiful than what you ever imagined....
Life has so many facet... and it was only yesterday, that I thought I have seen it all.. and today I see a new horizon..... perhaps this is what God try to convey .. when we restrict ourselves to limited capabilities and mundane things we loose sight of many horizons. This life is for many more horizons to be conquered.Many more aspects of oneself to be discovered......