Member-only story
Art and experiencing loss early in life
In 2006, I shifted from Hirakud to Sambalpur. My old home and my new home were 20 km apart. We lived in a government quarter for a long time: my parents, my brother, my maternal grandfather, and my aunt. This time, however, only four people were moving.
Before joining my family for the final trip away from this home, I made a last visit to all the rooms. My grandfather had already passed away by this time, in the same quarter where he started his family. My aunt was married off too. I wasn’t checking whether we’d forgotten anything; I was living in the moment. I would never return here.
Before exiting the living room, I glanced at the acrylic painting I had done four years prior. It was a sunset painting, bright oranges and yellows against pitch-black rocks on a full sheet of chart paper, and it took me three days to finish. Hirakud was a small place; it still is, so the only way to preserve that painting was to laminate it and then nail it to the wall.
I wish I had taken a picture of it too. Growing up in the era of Kodak cameras, you risk keeping every record as a memory. Maybe some photograph somewhere might have captured it. And I wish it hadn’t been lost or washed away in the flooding we would eventually experience in the new house.
