Inside the train, there was great bonhomie among the daily commuters. As the train reached my station, small and sleepy, and used by nearby residents as an uninterrupted walking space, I got ready for the short ride to my college, where the early morning campus, strewn with sculptures under the trees, seemed to be a world of its own. (Express Photo)
Winning competitions was never on my agenda. Instead, the power of expressing my ideas in colours of my choice fascinated me.
April 9, 2023 07:10 IST
Written by Anitha Menon
Walking down the college corridor, I felt both amused and slightly nervous due to inquiring looks from fellow students. Yes, I had finally done it — enrolled myself for the BFA course in Art History and Visual Studies at the age of 55.
To backtrack a bit, on a casual visit to the College of Fine Arts, Thrissur, I came to know that age restrictions had been removed and I could try for admission after the state-level entrance examination. This followed days filled with utter craziness as I hunted frantically for my ancient marksheets and shot off my application.
Long story short, here I was, a fresher in college, decades after my postgraduation and years after quitting my job as a lecturer in English. They say age is just a number. And here I was, ready to pursue my long-time wish to add deeper insights into my artistic practice.
Art has always filled my life, right from my childhood, when my mother entered me in a drawing competition. Although I won the competition, I was too shy to go on stage for the prize, which another girl with the same name promptly claimed as hers. Winning competitions was never on my agenda. Instead, the power of expressing my ideas in colours of my choice fascinated me.
As years went by, I doodled through everything — my college classes, on my preparatory textbooks, on the margins of my son’s textbooks — happily giving free rein to my imagination. To this day, my son talks about how I frightened one of his friends by saying that the fierce image of Kali with her tongue out was my self-portrait.
It was a time when art was not really accessible to people outside of designated circles. Art books were rare and very expensive. I remember whenever there was a student strike at the college I taught in, I would go to this bookstore, Idiom, in Fort Kochi and pore over the glossy art books there. It was also the time that art café culture began in Fort Kochi. And while it was interesting, I felt like an imposter stepping into uncharted waters.
Years later, prodded by my friends, a lot of introspection gained by visits to places like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York, the Louvre in Paris, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Venice Biennale, etc., and my own stint as an art mediator with the Kochi Biennale, I mustered the courage to hold my solo show. It gave me a sense of being seen and a desire to go deeper into the thought processes behind artistic endeavours.
Becoming a student at the age of retirement brought new experiences, starting with a two-hour train commute. It became a time to reflect and record the world around me, from the landscapes to the wide variety of people I saw. Childhood travel memories often surfaced when I remembered the happiness I felt on seeing lush green Kerala after the barren landscape along the journey from Delhi. Green it still is, but sadly punctuated with garbage near cities, the once fresh waterbodies choked with plastic and effluents.
Inside the train, there was great bonhomie among the daily commuters. As the train reached my station, small and sleepy, and used by nearby residents as an uninterrupted walking space, I got ready for the short ride to my college, where the early morning campus, strewn with sculptures under the trees, seemed to be a world of its own.
In the classroom, we discussed Heidegger’s The Origin of the Work of Art and Schapiro’s note on Van Gogh’s boots. Earlier, we had an ‘orientation’, the relevance of which I understood when I realised that most of my classmates had come here without family support. It seemed important to educate parents on the possibilities of the course their children had chosen over the usual engineering or science degrees. The fear of parents, understandably, rose from how artists’ lives are usually fraught with struggles.
My own journey has not been one without questions. The first few days in college, I wondered, “What am I doing here?”. This was Gen Z, which spoke a lingo that was not mine, but as days went on, I understood them more and they too started to see me as someone they could talk to.
Yet, there were questions from outside, “Who will cook at home when I’m gone?”, “What job will I get after studying?” … questions that were irritatingly regressive. There were also a few who told me that they too wanted to go back to college. My decision to study is part of my self-exploratory quest, breaking societal, ageist and gender expectations imposed on us. And I am excited to take on the adventure with its joys and hardships.
First published on: 09-04-2023 at 07:10 IST