An Artist In Making

Today, on 24 Feb 2014, a great thing happened to me. An incident which gave me a memory of a lifetime. Excited? You need a hint?

This incident reminded me of a quote by Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, which is, 

"Great things are not necessarily the things which you do, they'll also be the things which happen to you."

Got it? No? Well, read on.

Today's incident was one of such "Great" things which happened to me.
 

My friends & I, went to see off our old friend to the Bus Stand on Shivajinagar In Pune. It was very quiet out there at the time. Well it was supposed to be as it was freaking 12 am in the morning. When we entered into the bus station we came across a group of people sleeping on the floor. Many homeless people and those who had buses late at night, had decided to lay on the floors for a while. For all those, who are familiar with bus/railway stations in India, this is not new. When we entered into the bus stand it was the first thing we all noticed. I felt bad; many people don't have a home to go to & many don't have anywhere to travel to either. Homeless people choose to live/rest on the streets, or the bus stands or the railway stations. But this is not why I'm writing…


I'm writing because I spotted a guy with a red shirt, sitting right inside one of the groups of people sleeping on the floor. Many great painters (artists) - artists like Leonardo Da Vinci - found an inspiration in women, beauty etc. But our artist in the red shirt found an inspiration on the bus stand. Do you know what he was doing? Yes, you guessed it right. He was drawing people sleeping on the floor! 

My first reaction was, what's he doing?

What caught my attention was that he was good; great actually. I couldn't help but click some pics of our artist in red shirt without his permission from a distance. He was so engrossed in his drawing that he hardly cared for what people might think. He didn't lose his focus. He was very careful with every stroke of his pencil. The way his strokes ran in his drawing book made me even more curious. I had to know whether he knew what he was doing. Now I had to go over & see for myself what he was drawing. I went close to him & had a peak. I was facing his back so he couldn't see me peeking in. (I always preferred to approach strangers stealthily. Especially women; because that way they won't get any chance to run away as soon as they see me.) 

I had to take a look at his work. I was starting to wonder whether he was another homeless mad fellow

When I saw what he did, I was speechless. 

I have seen many artists draw, but this guy had something; something which told me that he could be the next Leonardo or Picasso; something which told me that you can't achieve anything in life without determination & hard work. Many people of his age might do something unproductive at 12 am in the morning but our artist was different. He decided to spend his time wisely doing something he loves.

Now that I have seen his beautiful sketch, I had to talk to him. (Yes I'm creepy! I do that a lot; especially with girls. No, I'm definitely not creepy.) I had so many questions for him. I had to ask who he was & what he was doing & why he choose this place for his passion. I went to talk to him; barrage him with questions like - What's your name? What do you study? What he was doing on a bus stand in the middle of a night? 

He told me that his name was Viky (name changed) and that he was a student of **** college from Pune. (I acted as if I know that college which was followed by a surprising expression of his face. I reckoned that he figured that I'm not from around here because as it turns out, there is no such college with that name anywhere in Pune. Now, I'm convinced his name was fake too) He told me, that he choose this place & time because it was peaceful at night on the bus stand. I asked his permission to click some pictures of his work. He was very shy & introvert. (Or ashamed of something he was doing?) After taking a few pictures of his drawing book, he left. He left in a jiffy. I figured, he was probably getting late (for something or someone?). He was out my sight in a few seconds but I felt like I could see him leave in a slow motion. 

First Sketch

Second Sketch

Even though he had left, I couldn't focus on anything else but him. I tried but couldn't; may be because I thinking about how even though our country has so many great artists, they don't choose their passion as a career. Instead they go for something which their family wants them to do. Could he be one of those who'll go on to become an engineer just because he is a boy? Or perhaps a doctor? I wondered whether there are only these two professions left in the entire world. But let's hope he's different; his parents are different. Let's hope he gets really good with his drawing & holds an exhibition somewhere; somewhere in this huge world. Keep looking for him people, he might be our next Picasso or Leonardo or just another engineer or a BPO employee. I'm hopeful that one day he'll be a great artist.

"But it's not what we want "them" to do, but it's what they "love" to do…"

Written by Rishikesh G. Pande

Originally written on 24 Feb, 2014