Beautiful Boston. Today we are Boston Brahmins (The term Boston Brahmin denotes Boston's traditional elite upper caste, we are no way close to them, we are just two poor Brahmins visiting Boston). Today, my wife and I went to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, a major attraction in the historic city of Boston in the United States which was the center of patriot independence movement when the Americans drove their English colonial masters away from their homeland.
I am a poor artist. Forget art, I am very bad at drawing objects, but it hasn't stopped me from appreciating art. Art and artists always fascinate me. Like art, I tried my hands in writing poetry and failed miserably there too. But I love reading poetry, Keats and Shelley being my two most favorite English poets, Ghalib and Gulzar their favorite Urdu counterparts. Similarly I admire the great artists from Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh to Picasso of Guernica fame and our own Indian counterpart, Raja Ravi Verma.
During my school days my talented friend Bishnu Rath used to seat next to me during our Exams (a brilliant guy who was my junior in Computer Science in NIT Rourkela, topping his class). In my Biology paper I had to draw the picture of a Frog. How many times I tried to draw the animal, the frog looked more and more like a dog. Bishnu, a brilliant artist who was sitting next to me could sense my discomfiture. When the invigilator went out to get some fresh air on that hot, steamy day, he bent over and drew a quick sketch of a frog on my paper. I just had to connect the dots on the outline and lo behold, a beautiful frog just jumped out of my Exams paper. It was a picture perfect experience.
My futile attempt to draw didn't end there. In early 1990s we had a pet dog and wanted to put up a signboard in Odia displaying "କୁକୁର ପ୍ରତି ସାବଧାନ" (Beware of Dogs) in front of our house for the benefit of unsuspecting guests. Until we had painted it on a tin platter by a contractor, I thought of putting a temporary placard handwriting on a thick piece of paper. So I wrote "କୁକୁର ପ୍ରତି ସାବଧାନ" in big, bold Odia alphabets and drew a picture of a Doggie.
No sooner I put the board in front of our gate than our neighbor stopped by and remarked that my sketch of a dog looked more like a "ବାଛୁରୀ" (calf). Then couple of more neighbors remarked the same. We have this Odia DHAGA (proverb) "TINI TUNDA RE CHHELI KUKURA", meaning, "Three mouths can turn a goat into dog". In my case, the remarks of our three neighbors conveted my hand drawing of a dog into a calf. It was the final nail in the coffin of my artistic endeavor.
But it never stopped me from appreciating art, figures and figurines. I admired all things of beauty as pieces of art. I follow the art masterpieces on social media shared by my artistic friends and can't stop admiring their talents. The forests I saw yesterday in New England filled with red, fiery trees full of hues are nature's greatest piece of art. Writing, which for me has become an habit from hobby is also an art. In this context my visit to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston was quite significant.
On our drive to Boston we were floored by the fallen leaves sweeping the floor of the road. We passed by topsy turvy mountain roads interspersed with lakes on both sides, stars glittering on crystal clear water on a sunny Fall day. Downtown Boston looked archaic but full of trees and people riding bikes all over the city. We entered into the Museum of Fine Arts an hour past noon.
The Museum had a wide collection from ancient Egypt, Greek, Mesopotamia, Chinese and Indian Civilization to modern European and American art and culture. The most prominent one was a painting of Picasso. I also saw sculptors of Yakhi, Yakhini, Buddha. Their were several by American Revolution era painter John Singleton Copley who made portraits of his rich patrons, business tycoons Nathaniel Sparhawk, Isaac Royal and lawyer Edmund Quincy. The hardly smile on their painting, the reason being their bad teeth in an era sans modern dental care. Also the subjects proudly displayed their plumpy and rotund figures as they were considered as healthy sign, a sign of prosperity those days.
New England is expensive compared to Georgia, starting from the price of gas to everything else except the locally produced Maple syrup which is cheaper than what we get in Georgia. A few locals I talked to have never been to Georgia, some even said that the last time they heard about it when they were in high school. A gentleman exclaimed - "You are far away from home, my friend. I had been once to Atlanta in month of August. The place is too hot and muggy to live there". I replied - "Same here. I will be a frozen Turkey if I live here". Grass is always greener on the other side, same as we say in Odia - "DOORA PAHADA SUNDARA" - the far hills looked beautiful as we are preparing to bid adieu to New England. See you again soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment