ELEGY(AHH..) WRITTEN TO SOME ' PASSIONATE' PAINTERS

There were some passionate painters
Who would never manage to buy a canvas
Even if they were rolling in money-
So passionate were they that they would quip
Every four months or so:
'I need to buy some brushes, some paint,
And I will still do it,
There is no doubt about it
And there is no need to hurry, anyway"
Then they would go on and on about
Some Bacon or Giocometti
Or the long list  of 'masters'
Whom thy seemed to have mastered
But they still couldn't find time to paint
And did not feel any need for it
Since so much has already be done-
And obviously they didn't have much to do there.

And obviously, the other sort of shabby creatures
Who were seldom called painters
Unless in scorn
Who in their thread-bare clothes
Would carry along a piece of charcoal
Or a small pen and sketchbook to draw.-
The painters of Altamirah or Ajanta
Could have been from amongst them
Or a painter from Mandla or Bastar
Who stays  in a one room house in Bhopal
And creates  his little wonders
In spite of being of no name or fame.
Those one may call
"The hunger artists"
Who though they may not have visited Hungary or France
Still had no other way but to paint.
They may not mention their passion
Because it was closer to a hunger or thirst,
So physical and material
And could no more be done away with
With some convenient theory
About the meaninglessness of art.
Because it was with painting that they tried to overcome
The meaninglessness of their present
And because it was with painting
That they were still attempting
To create some meaning
At least for their lives
If not for others.