Story of an Artist who Wanted to Struggle

This month, I would like to share the story of an artist with my readers. As I want to hide the identity of this man, let me take the Kafkaesque route; I would call him ‘Moon D’.

Moon D was born to a rich farmer. Like any other story of an artist goes, Moon D too showed excellent proficiency in drawing and painting in childhood itself. Copying images from magazines and newspapers, in oil colors was his major hobby. His natural commanding presence brought him many friends, mostly rich youngsters who took interest in business than in studies.

His parents pampered him as he was the only ‘boy’ in the family. They never allowed him to travel in a bus, a chauffer always accompanied him. Slowly, Moon D grew weary of his protected life. He wanted to do something more with his life. Always an average student, he did not want to pursue higher studies in science or humanities, whereas his family wanted him to become a graduate in commerce and to venture into the business world.

Moon D wanted to join Sir JJ School of Arts in Mumbai. But his father did not like the idea. He feared that the city would gobble up his son. Yielding to the stubbornness of Moon, finally his father agreed to send him to study art, but not in the JJ School, but in a local college, which was half an hour away by train.

Traveling in second class or general compartment was the most hateful thing for Moon. So he traveled in first class every day. His presence was so commanding like Tagore’s Gora that none dared to sit in the window seat that Moon D preferred to sit every day. During this daily commuting between home and college, Moon D made friends with those ‘rich’ commuters who could afford to travel in first class.

Moon D made portraits of those friends and he was paid for each portrait. From this Moon formulated one of his charters: “To be rich one need to move around with the rich people.”

Loaded with money for his age, Moon exuded power, authority and influence in the art college. Money was pouring in as one impressed client brought another before Moon D. He would have become a portrait artist, rich, influential and a business man of sort. Moon again felt the rebellion growing in him.

Without his father’s knowledge, Moon D started attending a part time course in Raheja College in Mumbai on Saturdays and Sundays. He took a course in textile and fashion design. Having completed the Diploma course from the local art college, the question ‘what next’ appeared before Moon D. Rich guys came around him, local politicians wanted his mettle of leadership and family wanted his entry into business. But he wanted to run away.

Money from the train journeys had burnt out by now. Moon wanted to escape from the village. Mumbai was his destination. He borrowed two hundred rupees from friend. The friend was embarrassed. A man who rolled in money asking for such a meager sum! He enquired whether Moon wanted more. Moon had written another point in his book of charters: “Never borrow a small amount from a rich friend.”

In Mumbai, Moon D went to live in a chawl as his proud self did not want to borrow money from his rich father. His idea was to lead a life full of struggle and become an artist. Destiny, however had stored something else for him. One day he happened to bump into an old pal who was then running a garment factory in Mumbai and was looking for a designer.

Next day Moon D found himself working at textile designs in his friend’s factory office. Assignments were pouring in and once again Moon’s pockets started sagging with the weight of currency. Moon worked for fifteen days in a month and the other fifteen days, he moved around in big company enjoying all those luxuries that the city of Mumbai could offer. It was mid 1990s. He developed a special affinity for dining at the top floor restaurants of the five start hotels in the city. From there he watched the city down there dipped in neon lights.

One day, in one such restaurant Moon D did a portrait of a rich fellow who just developed some curiosity on this young brat. As usual this rich man brought more rich men before Moon. His pocket was again getting stuffed.

Moon found his career as a textile designer flourishing and the demand for portraits increasing on each passing day. Almost a year passed and he noticed one thing, the itch that drove him to Mumbai was yet not scratched to comfort. It was coming back again and again, disturbing his lonely nights. Then one day he found his designs copied in the clothes sold in flee markets. He wrote down his third point: “When your product moves from the high-end showrooms to low-end pavements, shift the gear, change style and in short RUN AWAY.”

And he did run away. Money was not ending and life was easy. Moon made innumerable drawings that he religiously consigned to flames at the weekends as they did not satisfy him and his desire to become an ‘artist’. Another play of the providence; in a month’s time Moon found himself as a product designer for utensils companies. The touch of Midas had not left him though he wanted to shirk off it from his system. His aim was to struggle but it was the last thing happening in his life. Amongst the small scale utensils industry in Mumbai ‘Moon D, the Designer’ became a famous name. Again money was raining on him.

In one of the weekend trips to the luxury heights of hotels, Moon D befriended another man (let us call him Angel). In the case of material success Angel was like Moon D, but minus of his artistic ambitions. Moon hit well with Angel, who proved his talents in interior designs. With new buildings coming up in Mumbai throughout the year, interior designers made gold out of this supplementary part of real estate and construction business. Now Moon D too was a successful interior designer.

Fate was not leaving him to have his share of struggle. With his entry into the interior business, Moon had to be in the company of real estate people, agents and executives of the companies who made use of their visits to Mumbai for some extra-domestic skin game. Now Moon D found himself talking to up-market pimps, negotiating prices with them. Once a flourishing draper, now bargained for stripping those draped bodies. Moon felt sick. He wanted to quit.

Moon D did quit his world of luck. He went to the Osho Commune and enrolled himself there. He studied the teachings of Osho and tried to forget his tryst with Mumbai. He clutched on to the words of Osho as if he were going to sink. Now he could struggle. He placed a blank sheet of paper before him. The charcoal piece in his hand trembled and he started drawing like a mad man.

Osho commune soothed the wrinkles in his mind that the money had brought him in Mumbai. He wanted to go back to the village, till the soil and live the life of a farmer, humble and natural. He felt that he could paint there, paint for himself. Not for glory, not for money, not for anything. Painting just for making himself happy.

But lady luck had taken a vow to wreck revenge on Moon D. She struck again on him when he happened to meet a friend from the village who was an influential person with the administration. The administration was looking for an artist, who could do some public sculptures in the town. Moon refused to take the offer. The friend talked about loyalty, love, commitment etc. Finally Moon D decided to take up one work; a huge sculpture in a public square.

One commission brought another one. Now Moon’s friends were high level officials of the government. Moon’s words carried a lot of weight amongst these officials. With officials came the politicians, their cronies and one time thugs aspiring for social redemption. Everyone and everything was converging to Moon D. They all thought one day Moon would become a Mayor or Minister or a corporation chairman or something. But Moon did not want to become anything. He wanted to be an artist.

One fine morning, without telling anyone, Moon left his village again. His parents were asking him to get married, which he refused to do. He took out his car and drove towards a town where artists used to live. He did not know many people there. He rented out a house and started working. Money did not worry him for he had enough money with him. He went on to draw and paint. But slowly, the other artists who were already in the town started looking at Moon D as a father figure. Now Moon D was getting into a new circle of commitments. Moon’s days and nights became hectic again. Gallerists came to him, they wanted his works.

Where are the works, Moon D asked himself? He thought about the drawings he burnt in Mumbai. He thought about the drawings that he never cared to bring back from the Osho commune. He looked at his experiments with different mediums. He looked at the canvases that he tried to finish. He could see now, the artist in him was always there, intact. He wanted to struggle and artist’s struggle. Suddenly, a realization dawned upon him: “While looking for the imaginary struggle, what I did not see was my ‘being’ an artist. The life I spent in luxury, looking for avenues of struggle was actually the work of art I was doing. When the illusion is taken out, what remains is art and life.”

As Osho asked, how do you take out the goose from the bottle without breaking the bottle or killing the bird? Then starts the struggle. But the moment you realize that there was no goose and there was no bottle, you are free and you become an artist.

Moon D is now a fulltime artist in India, with a lot of offers for doing group and solo shows.