‘Quick study’

I had never seen anything like it, and can barely remember the details anymore. I know it was very large, and I know it was very bright, and I know it was more comfortable than anything I could understand then – the way a warm rain at just the right time makes you feel as though you've melted and melded with the very earth itself.

I listened to her attentively for several weeks, alone at night by candlelight as winter storms wailed outside. During those sessions, I made sure to catch every nuance, made sure to study rhythm and metre and inflection as best I could. Before too long, she'd tell me to Sit!, and down I'd go – even if the frozen ground felt very cold. She'd tell me to Stay!, and I wouldn't move a muscle – even if a fly settled right on my nose, even if a draft blew into my ear like an errant gnat, like a fleeting thought of violence. And she'd tell me that I was very good indeed, and I'd believe her – though oftentimes I didn't feel any better than any other day, and sometimes felt a good deal worse.

The day I attacked her was the first day of the spring thaw, and we were outside hanging up our woollen blankets in a fresh breeze, the blip-blip-blip of melting snow all around. Stay, just stay, she said absentmindedly, as she pounded the blankets with a deodar rod and I dropped into a crouch. She had been a good tutor, and I loved her for that. But she had nothing more to teach me, so I left her bleeding and galloped off into the hills.

My muscles felt good as they flexed; my chest, powerful as I howled resoundingly through the valleys.

This is part of a regular series of Himal's commentary on work by artists incarcerated in Tihar Jail, Delhi, made available through the Ramchander Nath Foundation (www.rnf.org.in). This work is by Suraj, mixed media on canvas, 24"x18".