Art Ichol Journal

I Want To Dream
The only things that I recollect being any good at, as a child, were drawing and
dreaming. I could spend all day with my favoured D’s. I was a lucky child who was
loved and indulged by both parents for every whimsical want. But like any other girl
in those days, as my teens came to an end, it was time to marry and ‘settle-down’.
I moved to a relatively unknown city into a joint family and began a whole new life.
My two boys Aditya and Anshuman were born and my life effortlessly became more
and more about others and less about myself. Painting and drawing and those things
I once enjoyed doing, often seemed like a dream from some past life.
One day, out of the blue, Sanjiv told me that he had bought a small place in a new
building on Alipore Crossing that I could use as my studio and start painting again.
I gave it serious thought and told him that I no longer wanted to paint, but wanted
to work with artists and open an art gallery. He looked at me in surprise and asked
me what an art gallery was. Haha! I have never forgotten that moment. Like a
typical businessman, he wanted to know if this venture would pay for the building
maintenance and electricity bills. But despite his instinctive response, my husband
showed a caring sensitivity in giving me the space to do ‘my thing’. Sanjiv and I
couldn’t be more different from each other. He had no clue about what I was doing
nor did he pretend to understand art. He just knew he had to do this for me, for my
sake, and I’m ever-grateful for such a life-partner.
Even in those early days when faced with multifarious familial responsibilities
I always dreamed; sometimes despite the responsibilities and more often because of
them. I have often questioned myself about what gets me more side-tracked, hectic
reality or mesmerizing dreams? My usual day is frenetic and taken up with endless
phone-calls, emails, errands, sitting for hours in traffic, meetings and greetings and
scores of trifling events. It is only when I dream that I feel a sense of calm. I can rest,
drift and attune to my deeper self. I visualize at great lengths and in great detail all my
inner desires and goals. I navigate their flow based on the reality of the world and how
to achieve them on that plane. I let these dreams show me wonders and have realized
that they do indeed manifest.
photo courtesy: art ichol