The sun was bright and hot, but we still decided to walk to NGMA (National Gallery of Modern Art) from home. We wanted to see the paintings of Rumale Chennabasavaiah. On reaching the place, since it was lunch time we first went to the cafeteria.
On the menu board (hand-written) we found many things. One of them was hot chocolate. Yum! anyway I decided not to take that as I wanted to first eat lunch. I ordered chicken curry paratha and pappa ordered kheema biryani. Since they said there was no chicken curry, I decided on kheema curry. After lunch, we bought tickets and went inside the gallery. Since I am a student the ticket cost me only Rs one. I was surprised it is so low.
Honestly, when I had seen the posters of Rumale paintings I was not interested in them at all. But when I saw the first one I was shocked and overcome by joy. Every painting was so beautiful. I thought water colours are used only by kids, but here Rumale had used it so well and I came to know that it is not very easy to paint with water colours. He had painted trees and flowers that we see everyday. I did not know there was so much magic in them. Bougainvilla flowers look so beautiful when painted in water colour.
After I finished seeing every painting on the wall, coming out I saw all trees and flowers as a splash of colours. Pappa told me, “This is what a good artist does to you”.
We went back to the cafeteria and had hot chocolate. The cafeteria is a lovely place. Many Saturdays we have spent time here reading books. Pappa sat reading a novel. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I just wanted to relax. My mind felt fresh and great, only my body felt like relaxing. I told pappa, “After seeing Rumale, it feels very good”. All he said was “mmm”.
After half an hour, I bought another ticket, because it is very cheap, and went to the gallery again. When I came back pappa pointed out a white board and said that there was a outline of a Rumale painting and I could fill a part of it by collage. As I went closer to the board I saw some parts of the painting had been covered and someone had stuck Mr. Over Expressionless’s photo (Manmohan Singh). I saw a small version of the original painting pasted next to the board and started working on the collage. Below the original was written, ‘Let’s make a collage version of Rumale’s painting’.
I took some magazines which were kept there on the table and kept cutting and pasting from them. I decided to make a collage tree. I cut out some yellow, blue, green and red pages. Of course, I couldn’t complete the whole tree. Pappa told me that mine was the most abstract and best. Later, we picked up Rosy on the way and walked back home. She was surprised we were talking so much about flowers and greenery. She decided to see the exhibition too.
Chilly's Corner 