Windows. of Maastricht.

"Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love..."

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a yellow room with a big window. 

opens out wide to give an unhindered view of the sky outside

a large mirror on the wall opposite to it makes the room endless

brings in a bit of the blue sky inside the yellow room in the mornings

in the evenings, amber lights fill the room and cast warm human shadows on the window to any passer-by who cares to look

to travelers who once wished a home

...

a green room from a past life, with two small windows, side by side, two feet of wall in between

each secure with vertical iron grills and metal nets

the sky always chequered and sliced and never enough. from the bed. from where she looked.

an incompleteness of adolescence can create a lifelong longing. 

a rare kind of longing that doesn't die with satiation.

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what is it about windows.

in a room with a view

on homes in the streets of a little known city

on an airplane as it descends to touch a place you still call home

in a train that passes by greens and yellows and windmills and roads lost in forest or mud huts and paddy fields and distant human lives.  

why do all things look magical through a window, at a window. 

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a window let's me be a part of another life from a distance. 

a life I am not really a part of, or maybe I am. or I want to be, till I don't want to be. 

windows work nicely for an introvert. It is a veil one can lift or drop at will to step in, or withdraw from, a world outside. 

a safe escape. 

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a window nurtures desires. of exploration and freedom from confinement of a room. 

a window inspires a quiet rebellion against the ticking demands of a life. 

a window celebrates pause and pointlessness. 

which perhaps, like someone said, is the point.

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a window brings light air sound warmth and, beauty. 

makes a room, or a life,  seem endless, warm and wholesome. 

makes a life endless, warm, wholesome, and sad. 

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some of my favourite windows of Maastricht. 

the favouritest at the very end. my room window seat overlooking the station.

[afterbyte]

The English word “window” has its origins in the Scandinavian word “vindauga”, and it means “wind-eye” or an eye for looking out.

The German word for “window” is “Fenster”. It has its origins in the Latin word “fenestra”, and means “an opening”. French “fenêtre”, Dutch “venster”, and Italian “finestra” are related.

The Bengali "janala" is borrowed from the Portuguese "janela" and not the Sanskrit vatayan ( which also means a horse, that can run like the wind) or gabaksh (which is a cow's eyes or in architectural parlance, eyes through which the deity looks at the outside world.)

Portraits of an artist as a human

Imagine Rembrandt, Vincent and Frida are journalling in their afterlives. In all likelihood, they would be creating fascinating visual diaries or picture books of self-portraits reflecting their still evolving souls. 

Rembrandt created 100 different versions of his face across 40 years. Frida painted over 50 pictures of herself because she was the subject she knew best. Vincent made close to 40 self-portraits of changing colour themes and facial expressions with backgrounds that often matched his mind patterns. 

Almost twenty of these self paintings are in Van Gogh museum alone. Others are displayed across Musée d'Orsay, The Met, Courtauld and The National Gallery of Art. All created in a span of 3.5 years. Starting in 1886 when Vincent moved to Paris and ending in 1890, with his death.

When he could not afford models in Paris, Vincent turned to the mirror. Self portraits were primarily his tools to explore and experiment with art. 

He studied new styles and changed colour pallettes from darker to lighter shades and used varied accompaniments such as a hat or a pipe or a pallette or, a bandaged ear. These portraits were often drawn on the back of other canvases with urgency and purpose,  often focused more on the creative aspects, facial expressions and moods rather than on exact physical likeness with the artist. It is said that Van Gogh's closest (also his personal favourite) portrait was not one among his own works but one done by John Russell. It read - "Vincent, in friendship." [below]

Vincent's self drawn portraits were mostly brightened up with complementary colours , except a couple early ones. Glass green eyes looking luminous with a dash of  red around it. Blue of his smock contrasting with the gleaming orange of his beard. Colours painted in dots, and dashes, and radiating resplendent thick brushstrokes and patterns that almost moved inside the frame with energy while his face mirrored stability, calm, depth.

His many selves, his many souls, as he lived many lives in one with difficult and changing emotions, manifested in these pictures. Swirls in the background expressing his tumultous mind patterns, bolder brighter brushstrokes expressing his grit as he battled with mental health ailments at Saint Rémy's. These portraits sometimes showed a sensitive, vulnerable human, sometimes a brilliant, brave artist. Sometimes both. 

And his eyes. With that intense gaze and endless depth, and sadness. The eyes in his portraits never look very far, often at the onlooker, creating a connect and evoking emotions. With Vincent in the foreground and motifs of his mind in the background, it is as if we are looking at him through shattered glass refracting bright colours. Or a turbid lens of a world that never quite understood his soul. 

[all portraits included above were photographed at the Van Gogh museum in March 2024. some of the works were on exhibition hence unavailable.

a near full set of Vincent's self-portraits can be seen here.]

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tailpic.

miss r's vincentesque self-portrait with her mind whorls of confusion and a big ear peeping through the hairdo. 

Still, Life

It was a birthday.

Flowers came in forgotten colours
Yellow-pink lilies, yellow gerberas,
Red roses, purple orchids
Sunflowers.

In my diurnal oscillation
Between stillness and flow
A pause unrushed, tender,
Of old affectionate faces
Flashed mellow, slow.

In fatigue of losing ways
On present, absent everydays
I looked for a yellow canvas,
Imagined a birthday poem
Scribbled somewhere
Then adrift, by life's zephyrs. 

These are autumn evenings now.
Through fruitions, precipitates,
I desired your chaos and calm again,
Hesitant, in light and shade, I did still wait
Someplacetime else on earth
Where without you
The day did not end.

-----

Untitled

Blood smells a bit like fish and familiarity

In a way men will never know.

Pain crawls up and shackles her in silence

For five days she is 

A seasonal river that flows to let go.

Crimson looks like death; and intense life

In a way no man will ever know.

Only she who was born

To live many lives in one

The first flood, the falls,

The fruition, the flow, the fadeout...

To her,

Blood smells heady

Like the fragrance of yesterlife,

At its poignant best

when it is time to let go. 

Cwtch

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An embrace.

Loving, protecting, safeguarding and claiming. With intimacy, earnestness, ownership. A safe place in two peoples' hearts.

So I ask her again. Do you know what is that thing which will heal ? And let you breathe a bit. You've been holding that breath for too long, do you realise that.

Have seen fuller eyes but not ones that can brim so much and still hold for hours, years. She is not with me, or anyone. Looks away with hesitation, afraid of resting eyes on something forbidden, reliving ununderstood words, uncertain what to feel.

A silent hour between midnight and dawn. Even when broken by life, scattered in space, at this hour, seeing the sky always makes her dream. She closes her eyes.

Isnt it quiet. The city sleeps early of late. Fatigued around each other all day, in and out of rooms, companionships, pretences. It is quiet, and flute plays in a soft night raga with muted tanpura underneath.

The moon is crayoned and calm. Sometimes behind a cloud in usual transience. Stars are sparse, her pole star unmoved at his distance, always giving an illusion of looking at her.

She feels as if each of these, soft light of the moon, skin touching hair caressing breeze, the sky the quiet the darkness this one solitary magical moment in time, every element of creation perceptible to her senses is nothing but bits of him.

The flute is without an end.

I ask her. Do you know what is that one thing which will heal ? And let you breathe a bit?

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