The Author

 

Her small head contains an infinity of perfection. The world flies into her head and gets conceived there. She patiently bears it and shapes it thoughtfully and carefully. She nurtures it in her head for several days until the shapeless world acquires shape. Faces receive characters, characters receive names, names get recognition. Recognition breeds familiarity.

One night, she silently types the world she had shaped. She pauses and presses backspace. A while later, after ruminating upon her choice of words, she continues. She pauses again. No amount of words could capture the perfection in her head. Words cut off the limbs of her creation to accommodate it. Her perfect creation was born imperfect. She contemplates whether to have it unborn and perfect or born and imperfect.

Then she remembers it. Parvati created a perfect boy from the sandal paste of her body. He was born in her head first then was brought to life by her hands which shaped every part of him with great care. The eyes, nose, mouth, hands and everything else was sculpted to perfection. She paid attention to every detail and poured her soul into the creation of his life.

When the beautiful head of her beloved son was severed, she accepted a compensation. The head of an elephant did not suit the body which she had created painstakingly. It looked bizarre and her heart broke but it was all Shiva was able to accommodate and so she accepted her half-familiar son.

In his Divine Image God created the first of men and women. He shaped their bodies and breathed the breath of life into their nostrils. He loved them and bestowed paradise upon them. But one day, the pinnacle of his creation fell. The Divine Image, tainted with sin, became unrecognisable. Mankind transformed into something vastly different from what He envisioned. But He loved them so much that He gave them his only begotten son.

If Parvati can take her half-familiar, peculiar looking creation into her arms, if the omnipotent God can sacrifice his one and only son for his fallen creation, then so can the author. She can hold onto her bruised, coarse and imperfect art.