Amma’s art: Sky within

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Impulsively, the other day, I bought a set of art materials for Amma, Indu Shedde, who as you may know, is 96, and her vision is not great. I got beautiful art paper sketch pads, pastels, coloured pencils and charcoal pencils. I had planned to gift it to her on her birthday, but gave it to her right away instead. Each day is a bonus for all of us; at 96, more so.

The inspiration came from my friend Deepa Samant Soman, whose father Vasant Samant had a stroke at age 70, leaving one side of his body paralysed. "‘He won't be able to speak, but he will be able to sing', as the neurologist said in 2006," she posted on Facebook. She and her husband Milind decided to focus on what he could do, rather than what he couldn't. Now 88, he continues to cheerfully sing "taans", he draws, and plays the harmonica, all in his own way - and it's wonderful.

Likewise, last year, when I gave Amma a Casio keyboard, she immediately began playing Hindustani classical ragas on it (she's a Hindustani classical vocalist and sings daily). Anyway, I didn't want her to feel that drawing art was ridiculous for someone with her vision. So, I said, we will simply go by touch, without needing to see at all. I told her to put her left palm on the paper, and simply draw the outline of her left hand, holding the pencil in her right. She did the outline twice, first with a red pencil, then with a charcoal pencil. She beamed broadly as she held up her drawing: the double image looked very cool.

To encourage her further, I told her Satyajit Ray had made a documentary, Inner Eye, on Binode Behari Mukherjee, an accomplished painter and art teacher at Santiniketan; Ray had been his student. At 53, Mukherjee went blind, but continued to create art, his inner eye guiding his fingers (see YouTube). A few moments later, Amma asked, "Can I draw a Christmas star?" I just enveloped her in a big hug! It was exactly what I had hoped for: she had set off on another artistic journey, and was already thinking of her next drawing! Onek dhonnobad, Satyajit Ray!

As Amma remembers it, she gave her Elementary and Intermediate Drawing Exams in Hubli, Karnataka, at around age 10. She could afford to learn art only because she went to a municipal school, where the art class and art material were free. So, was she painting after 86 years? No, no, she clarified. After she came to Mumbai, got married and had us kids, Amma schlepped all the way from Santa Cruz to Churchgate by train, then walked to the Jehangir Art Gallery to attend art classes.

"The fees were quite high, but it was for art, so it had to be paid. Can you imagine, we had many teachers who explained their different styles, including MF Husain - he came without shoes! - FN Souza, NS Bendre, KH Ara and HA Gade (all icons of the Progressive Art Group, of course)." She later also enrolled in papier mache art classes at the Design Centre, Prabhadevi, as well as batik art. Later, we were fondly recalling how, when Amma travelled to the US around 1977, she got us a giant, 24-colour felt pen set. OMG, we showed off for months after, and uff, I must have been insufferable.

In the last week, Amma has drawn a cat, a peacock and a "Lakshmi mantap". Whaaat? I quickly google: it's a rangoli design, a complex floral pattern based on "21x11 interlaced dots." My brain is spinning, but Amma is doing her own version of it, ekdum bindaas. Her enthusiasm for art at 96 reminds me of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem Sky Within Us:

Oh, not to be separated,/
shut off from the starry dimensions/
by such a thin wall./
What is within us/
if not intensified sky/
traversed with birds/
and deep/
with winds of homecoming?

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com