Eyelight
The Pursuer - watercolour on paper. By: Nirali Lal.
‘Never is it smooth sailing, events are never perfect / Cobblestone pave a pattern / A maze to unravel’
I flip my books, out pops the fluttering letters
Shyly my eyeballs enlarge at the word of love
These words have been tucked away in flying feathers
But playfully surface now
Never is it smooth sailing, events are never perfect
Cobblestone pave a pattern
A maze to unravel
Start by following each step
towards the unknown
Like a paper weight, the body seems heavy
A burden on the numerous stories written below
Voices calling, a helplessness handcuffing
A weight to consider?
…let it fly or flow
I look for answers in notes I make.
Each story creates an image in colours
While these pictures play with what is real
I paint an image, as I want it to be,
Then a snap right back to reality
Just like a game of dice,
Moves are there, you need to chance
A wait in the rain, under an umbrella
Not as quick, like a rooster hop
A leap, a follow, an everyday fantasy
At the end, as things begin
I look in the mirror, at myself
See my heart, in my eyes
And find the answers,
that are just right
***
Nirali Lal is an artist and writer based in Baroda/Bangalore. She previously worked with Saffron Art as a Bangalore representative and as the Art Manager for The Artist Pension Trust in India. Her recent projects include Five Million Incidents (Goethe Institut, New Delhi in collaboration with RAQS Media Collective, 2020), The Nest (Anant Art, New Delhi in 2021, Space Alumni show, Space Studio, Vadodara 2020) and the Baroda March (Rukshaan Arts 2021-2022). You can find her on Twitter: @nirali_lal and Instagram: @niwawi_wow.
