Call it shoe-flower or hibiscus, somehow it does not sound as beautiful as "Chembarathy". Where I grew up, our home had red hibiscus, yellow hibiscus and pink ones too and we would pluck them to decorate our temple and still leave most of it in the trees to offer it as "Krishnarpanamastu". Today in California, my face brightens up when I see it rarely, blooming in someone's home. But indeed I see it more often these days in other forms like hibiscus tea and then the other day one of our cousins had made tamales with dried hibiscus! I attempted the above oil painting as a tribute to the beautiful flower that will never dry in my memory and I watch it to relive my childhood :)
Raandhal - thats what we used to call this lantern. When we visited our grandparents, and whether there was a powercut or not, we would light these lanterns to take us through the dark nights in the patio. Memories of stories told in this light, of the bugs that would come buzzing to the light, of the smell of the kerosene, of thatha and paati watching us with knowing smiles...I painted this as an experiment to get the effect of the light and shadow and even got the "EVERYDAY" brand at the base. After painting it, I switched off the lights in the study and could see the glow of the light :) and smell the kerosene and hear the stories - ah how the mind plays tricks!
