The painting

 The room is blue , almost purplish blue and dark . 

It is raining outside and though the windows are closed , some invisible moisture has settled on the smooth concrete floor . As i settle down on the bare floor , I leave dark , caterpillar like squirm marks on the floor . I look down . My cloth mat seems moist . 

Well , what the heck . 

The room has one window , painted bright blue , and is totally bereft of any furniture or wall hangings .Except for one fluorescent light which , stuck to the roof , lights it up in the pale blue hue . The corners , conveniently for me , remain dark .  My sister was so distraught , when she visited me last time . What kind of a room is this ? You are becoming an ascetic now ?

I said no. I needed a spare room to interrogate my inner demons . I grinned . She fumed . As always . 

She left in a huff . I heaved a sigh of relief . 

I was glad the authorities could spare a room for me . 

It did entail the laborious task of removing everything that the room held , by way of meaning . Even the ceiling fan  , which I said distracted me . They rolled their eyes , uncomprehending , but removed it any way . There is no dearth of empty rooms in this place . Empty , clean , bereft of humans . The way I like it . Anyways , there are so very few people around . 

That it scares most . 

This is the most attractive feature of this place . 

You hardly meet anyone in the long, endless, chilly , corridors . Wet and glistening from the rain . 

Uncluttered because no one wants to be here . 

Except her . 

I have just propped the canvas I was carrying under my arm pit , slightly warm and moist from the journey from my room  till here . Sweat or rain ? or both . 

I splash lots of liquid blue from my multicoloured empty tin of rasagulla , which I had scavenged from an earlier revelry . Now it holds the colour that I fancy . One day it is black , other grey or purple or dark green . Today it is blue . It is darker than the colour of the walls , and lighter because it is lit from the buzzing tube light over my bald pate . 

She plonks herself behind me . I can hear her shuffle as she arranges the folds of her long skirt . I needn't look at her . I have positioned myself with my back to her . She knows that . And takes a long slurp out of her bloody smoothie bottle . 

It is a bottle which is the fad these days . A narrow glass that blossoms into a jug . It comes in pastel colours . Hers is pale pink . With a large white straw permanently poking out of the top . It is an abomination and encumbrance . Just like everything else . 

She slurps again . I hate it . But I cant say it out loud . Even the sound of her loud breath through the nasal prongs bothers me . Her tiny oxygen cylinder on the back , hisses every time she inhales . It is a torture . I fought tooth and nail the first few days . 

She fought back . She just wanted to see me paint , she said . 

I had to give in . Now , I realise the amount of preparations that must have gone into her coming here . The smoothie , bottle , the oxygen , the long skirt , phew . The fragrant perfume that invades my sanctuary . Eeeks . Like a demon body guard , it enters with her , sits throughout , then leaves with her . I sigh with relief . But sometimes I find myself sniffing the unlit corners for a whiff that the demon might have left behind . Traces of invasion . I defy and surprise myself . 

Human beings are strange . 

I have started painting large hibiscus shaped flower petals , light blue against a dark blue background . 

"Blue , huh ?" A loud and long slurp . 

I don't answer . Earlier , she had promised to sit quietly . She broke that promise , quite quickly . I have enough clout to have her bodily picked and thrown out . But I don't . Why ? 

As I said , humans are strange . Strange and contradictory . Promise breakers . 

"It needs gold border ." 

I ignored her. 

I continued to colour the central part of the flower , in  bluish white  squares. 

"Gold hairs emanating from the centre . Make it a face ." Another long slurp . The smoothie is probably finished . She is slurping air . I ignore her . 

"Me going now "

 Of course , now that your smoothie is finished and oxygen depleted , you human machine , surviving on external support , I thought to myself . I didn't speak . 

I rarely speak . I guess we deplete a lot of psychic energy through chatter . We were meant to harness our inner resources with economy . That includes economy of speech . So many words are being scattered everyday , like trash littering our innerscapes , and  invective spewing out of our mouths , like effluents from drains . 

We are strange creatures , 

She had left tiny snatches of her words in the corners of the room , and the wretched perfume lingered in the corners , sitting and watching me , intently , like tiny puppy demons . Just out of view. 

I left shortly . The painting unfinished . 

Returned the next day . She didn't . 

I didn't bother to find out . My flower was nearly complete . 

Then I met someone , in the corridor . Carrying her trademark pink smoothie bottle in one hand , and the tiny oxygen cylinder with a tube dangling in other hand . Her nasal prongs , slightly yellow from prolonged use. The person came and stood in front of me and looked at me . I raised my hand and he wordlessly handed me the two items . 

I dragged myself back to the blue room . Placed both the items next to me and restarted painting . The night became dark , swiftly . My room must have appeared like a firefly . an incandescent blue firefly in the dark . 

This time I did what she had asked me to . 

I painted golden hairs like mad , all around the blossoming calyx . I painted a tiny face with closed eyelids , a tiny nose with a nasal prong , a hint of a cylinder over her shoulder and a tiny pastel pink ugly bottle next to it . The periphery , I made into beautiful , bandhni , multicoloured long skirt or ghaghra . 

I painted  non stop .

I painted her . 

Humans are strange and contradictory . Promise breakers .