Chandra Culla

She walked towards the entry of the yellow house and inside I was begginng her to come over and say “Hi”.. I never know which visitors speak English, but in my heart I always hope someone will surprise me.

Chandra Culla did just that.

I was painting outside by the doorway, enjoying both the sun and the shade, mixing blues and yellows and exploring the ways watercolor does its magic- and there she was, standing in a beautiful brown sari saying the magic word, “Hello!”

Now, just because someone says hello does not mean they can speak english, just like my saying “namaskata” does not mean I know kannada, but Chandra is a journalism university graduate who could talk the talk! She had such a sweet aire to her, from her half pony tail and soft voice, I knew she was someone I could spend time with.

She asked what I was doing and I showed her my work. This is always best because I sound stupid when I talk about painting. I never really know what to say about my work other than I enjoy it. I flipped through the pages I had done, she had something nice to say about each of them. I didn’t realize how many I had done so far! It was so nice to share my work with her.  I told her if she wanted, we would paint together- she hestitated and smiled, and as soon as I found out that she wasn’t busy, I told her we should start now!

This was so exciting. Deciding to start something is good for me, considering I’ve been feeling so many restrictions on just diving in with people here. Language is just one of the barriers that seems to make it difficult for me to communicate- I’m beginning to feel lazy about work here, I’m not sleeping or eating too well and I have terrible headaches. I use these as excuses. I need to stop. I feel like I’m lagging on my goals here, then again I don’t even know what my goals are right now. Regardless, Chandra made it possible t have a conversation and spend some time with someone new.

I set her up with a palette of pinks, yellows, greens and blues. I truly believe there are few things more exciting than a fresh palette, and while Chandra probably thought I was crazy being so excited she was there, she seemed to accept my excitement nonetheless.

And then we were painting! Together! FINALLY, I did it. Shared it with someone here. There’s nothing greater than this- besides the fact that her and I had a conversation while working, in perfect English.

Steve told me about Chandra before. She had lost an arm in an accident and went to the Bapagrama because most other schools would alienate or not accept her. She successfully completed school and now has graduated from journalism school. It is such a joyful story, and to see her paint made me so happy. It doesn’t take two arms to paint, it only takes a committed heart.

I was so impressed with how she went right in with it. I forget sometimes how people hesitate when it comes to art- that we worry we won’t be ‘good enough’ that we don’t have the skills, that it will come out looking bad. I promised her that there is no such thing as a bad painting, and part of all of it is just learning how to make mistakes. She seemed to go with it, and it was so wonderful showing her different techniques and talking about things to paint.

I was so sad when she left, but she said she’d be back tomorrow. Tomorrow I am also hopefully going to get a chance to work with the students at the school. This was good, working with Chandra, because it reminded me that beginning an art often has some fears attached to it, I hope that I can bring comfort to my students in a way that will allow them to share their creativity with me.

Art must come from the heart, and I hope that I can find a way to both share and recognize this in my work with the students.

Match Made in..

So I did this random friend match program online and it said that India is one of my worst match countries.

Laugh.