OF LOVE AND SPRING BOUQUETS

8th April, 2022

From when I could begin to understand, I have loved Love.  The love fuelled kindness of strangers, the supportive love of friends when it feels like everything around you is falling apart, the unconditional love of parents and learning to love yourself are all types of love I have been fortunate to encounter in my thirty years. However, having grown up on a steady diet of Disney fairytales, rom-coms and larger than life Bollywood love stories, I am biased towards romantic love being my favourite kind of love. Maybe that's why I am such a hopeless romantic. 

There is beauty in romantic love. Certain nuances tie two people together in a bond that is bright and exudes light. Not to say that it doesn't come with its challenges, but the fact that those are overcome by love (and arguments and understanding) makes it something even more beautiful. And that is why it is also so inspiring!

Over the years I have learnt more about love by falling in love myself and having my heartbroken. In more recent times, through bad dates and feel good connections. Although, I have learnt most by watching real relationships around me – different people at different stages in their love stories. Watching these relationships grow and flourish has been joyful to watch.

One of these has been that of my best friend, Sadhvi and her husband, Abhinav (who fortunately for me was a friend before they fell for each other). They are a couple I happily third wheel with (till they are sick of me) and a couple that makes me believe in a 'real' and 'authentic' kind of love - messy yet pure. Early in 2020, just before the world shut down, I went to visit them in Bombay - A newly married couple, setting up their first home, a mere two months into their marriage learning to navigate this new phase as they tried to merge their lives.

It's funny how inspiration and creativity hit you at the oddest and most unsuspecting of times. This time it struck on a warm February afternoon as I sat nestled with my laptop on the couch in the Vaish-Verma living room when Abhinav came home with a little bouquet for his wife. He placed them in a vase (so Sadhvi, who loves flowers but hates to touch them, wouldn't have to) and gave them to her as she smiled and looked at him with a happiness I have only seen between them. 

As this bouquet of bright yellow sunflowers & wine-coloured button chrysanthemums found its place on the dining table, the sunlight hitting the colours in just the right way, I knew what I was painting next. A few days later when I got home, recharged and refreshed, I jumped straight into this piece of art. Thus, came to exist 'Spring Mix'!

One of the best parts about writing about the inspiration behind some of my artworks is getting to revisit those moments and seeing them in a different light. When I look at this piece now, I find new layers to what inspired me – it wasn't just the flowers and the way the sunshine made the colours pop but the love and thought that came with them. The story of a husband who wanted to do something small but special for his wife keeping in mind her preferences – flowers with no smell that came wrapped in paper, not plastic placed on a table for her to enjoy without the discomfort of touching them and the little joy of something simple and silly that he got in return.

It's the little things that matter. It's the little things that build into bigger things. And it's the little things we all remember. S & A – thank you for letting me be a part of a 'little thing' moment and for always keeping my belief in love alive (albeit with some hard reality checks). May your love always continue to blossom, grow and inspire, not just me but many others.

Take a minute to smell the flowers, to bask in that ray of sunshine, to feel the wind and to find the love around. Sometimes it’s fleeting, sometimes it’s hidden away and sometimes it’s in plain sight and you just can’t see it, but I promise you, love is always there … you just need to believe it is.