The Curse

Part 2

It was believed that Satish Shah came to settle down in Calcutta in the seventies. He was in his prime, at that time. He was in his twenties. He became an immediate sensation in the world of the then well-known painters. Nobody doubted his talent and he was immediately accepted by this city with a lot of warmth. Satish’s past was a mystery; the only reliable story that spread through the mouths of the intelligentsia was that he came from a remote village in U.P. and he even had a family– his wife, his mother and his two year old son. The reasons for his exodus to a big city varied from person to person. The bottom line was that he was a gifted painter and very few had any qualms about the obscurity of his past. His present was good enough. And Satish being a very reticent person closed all the doors of any frivolous chit-chat. He firmly believed, his painting would do the talking, not his life.

Artists happen to be idiosyncratic by nature and it is accepted in all forms of society. In fact, if a painter or a poet acts like a person working nine to five, people have reservation regarding his talent. But Satish’s whims were quirkier than others’ even by the parameter of his own fraternity. It wasn’t his unconventional relationships with many women that got a frown, nor did his addiction to alcohol from which he drew an impetus for his survival. Women and alcohol have always been invaluable sources of inspiration for an artist and for Satish too it was no exception. What surprised and later irritated everybody in the sorority was his aversion to publicity, his reluctance to display his paintings in any exhibition and his vehement refusal to sell any of his paintings even being offered good price for it, in the face of his abject poverty. The helplessness of these artists in front of big money was probably the reason for such illogical wrath.

Satish’s only source of income was the tuition he used to receive from his numerous admiring young pupils. It was a kind of modern Gurukul system he used to follow and he was very contented with the minimal income and the bare necessities. His students being very young were so much in awe of his talent that his caprices were overlooked. He discovered his élan vital through his students. His selfless love and dedication towards his students, on the one hand, made him popular among the young kids; on the other hand, the distance between him and other fellow painters grew larger. In no time, the number of his friends decreased to a substantial extent compared to the time of his arrival at this city when only the magic of his brush mesmerized them.

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Satish is now in his late forties, but his days are numbered. His wayward lifestyle has truncated his life. He is lying on a dilapidated bed in a dingy room, which is barely lighted by a sixty watt bulb and is overwhelmingly crowded by canvases and paintings. His poor health has been the cause of the departure of most of his students except that of one. Nikhil is the only student left who has been painfully witnessing the last days of his master. Satish’s rigid decision not to pay a visit to the hospital has forced this young man to spend sleepless days and nights by his teacher. The whimsicality of Satish have been very affectionately tolerated by this devoted pupil. Satish too has a special corner in his heart for this young boy. He sees his own reflection in this boy. He doesn’t know the whereabouts of his own child; how big he is now or whether he has taken after his father—he doesn’t have any idea. He hasn’t taken any initiative to search for his family. The only thing, he knows, he won’t mind if his son is like Nikhil. When all his students had gradually left him, Satish knew that it was Nikhil who would stand by him come hell or high water. Nikhil appreciates his teacher’s resistance to sell his paintings which Satish believes, are his babies, much dearer to him than his own life. Under no circumstance, he can’t part with them. In fact, Nikhil reveres his master more for this attitude and promises to himself that he too will follow in his guru’s footsteps and will never succumb to any materialistic temptation.

Before Satish breathes his last, he reiterates his principle to his pupil and gets his assurance that he shouldn’t go with the tide. After his teacher’s departure, Nikhil feels all alone in the world. He doesn’t go out that often and has lost many friends because of his strong ties with Satish. Nikhil’s contemporaries were mostly Satish’s students at some point or other. But with age, the awe from their eyes withered away and they preferred to stay with the so called successful painters rather than with Satish. They even tried to convince Nikhil about the futility of his association with Satish but Nikhil was too attached to his teacher to leave him. After Satish’s death, those friends use the opportunity of Nikhil’s loneliness to rope him in their group. Nikhil doesn’t mind their infrequent visits to his otherwise silent house but he is uncharacteristically vocal when they criticize his rigid adherence to his teacher’s ideology. So many of his friends promise him a comfortable life if he listens to them but being eager more to disprove their ideology than prove his own, Nikhil refuses to pay attention to their advice. Instead he resorts to a few tuitions to make ends meet. History is almost repeating itself except that Nikhil’s so called friends are cleverer and more persistent in their mission than Satish’s and Nikhil doesn’t possess the same strength of mind like his master.