Life Goes On....

Since it has become a habit with us, we take our big brolly and go for a walk in the residential community of Artist Village. There aren't many artist living here except a Marathi novelist, female, who is said by the residents to have gone slightly mental. They revel in euphemisms here. We see her stop in the middle of the street to sing a song like a Bollywood heroine, also we have seen her sit on the parapet of the terrace, a quite risky place to sit. The few artists, calligraphers, movie extras, and directors who lived here have left, few of them commiting suicide, so it is learnt, from local folklore. The only movie director we know has directed Bhojpuri movies. He has good ideas about making films but now is unemployed and roams around with a camera taking pictures.

They stare at this strange gent in his heavy jacket, his potbelly, his air of partial renunciation. An artist is a strange being even in Artist Village. Now that hurts a bit. We have not been materially rewarded by life, we don't own a fancy car, though most of our neighbours have bought theirs in crazy show of oneupmanship. Now they are fighting over where to park them. We don't take part in their bitter fights. We do try to mediate when we are in the mood. But that's the profile of an artist, down a wee bit but not completely out. We forget about the lack of appreciation an artist gets, and walk, and walk. We walk alone or with a companion on sundays. A not exactly starving artist, but an artist who could have done with some more appreciation. An artist ignored by the world at large. We have invested in our better half and child and both are gainfully employed. Wifey, she amazes us. We made her do a bachelor in education and she has risen through the ranks to be principal of the school where she works. Now how a village girl has done that, we don't know. Son is drawing a salary close to what we drew at the height of our career. Which, to say the least, is life.

Ho hum. Life gives one shocks and it makes us recover. Most things we plan don't work out the way we want. We get something which is totally out of the way, we get deflected from our main purpose, either out of laziness or lack of drive. Most days we are in front of the television or online: surfing, facebooking, twittering, tinkering with our guitar, and blogging. Imagine what life would have been like in the eighties when we didn't even have a computer. Corporate life is out for us, no, we will not go there anymore. It's a bitch world full of fast-talking people who don't know what they are talking about. We didn't have one decent boss in all our years of corporate life. Except a kind Goan boss - who gave us our first foreign trip - who employed us three times when we were without a job.

Life is a saga that goes one. It's a walk, a never ending walk at that. All this we are writing after we come back energised from a walk.