The Lady in the Painting : Short Story

 || Hari Om ||

The Lady in the Painting

With weary steps, the Artist boarded the train. Truth be told, he had been many things, even at a young age. Tried his hand at everything, even got a lot of acclaim. But he was a simple soul at heart. 

For the present, he was an Artist, and a weary one at that. The well of inspiration that added so much colour and life to his works seemed to be drying up. He was on a journey to his hometown, to rediscover some part of himself that had drifted off, as life took its course.

He sat down in the empty bogey and took a moment to greet his companion. She smiled back at him from the canvas: his most famous work: “The Lady “. She was young and vibrant, captured mid-smile. Truth be told, he had no idea who she was, or if such a person even existed. It was a face his mind had picked at random from the crowd. 

Over the  years, he had spent a lot of time with her picture and formed a lot of ideas about what she must be like as a person. He smiled at himself.  This was the fruit of solitude and an overly-creative mind. It was folly to look at a picture and try to get the measure of a person!

Lost in his own thoughts, he dozed off.

He awoke to the sound of a low and melodious voice. It seemed he had a human companion in the bogey, and she was having a polite argument with the porter. She expressed herself firmly in slow, measured words, and duly won the round. 

He turned to take a look at her, and almost jumped out of his skin. It was HER. The Lady.  The Lady in the painting. What astronomical odds, what conspiracy of God’s Hand had brought about this moment! That their paths should ever cross. Hastily, he returned the painting to its covered case. Keeping it visible would have been awkward beyond measure.

Presently, the argument was settled, and silence prevailed. She returned to her seat.

He looked at her again, the resemblance was very strong, though not perfect. To him, it seemed as if his painting had come to life. She noticed him looking, read something in his face and smiled mischievously: “You look like you’ve seen a ghost! I hope I don’t look that scary”

He smiled too. “ No, its just that I thought you looked familiar” 

The conversation sparked off, and they spoke for hours, hours that seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. They had very little enough in common, but it mattered not.  Both of them represented the missing pieces  of glass that completed their kaleidoscopic views of the world. There was  something about her voice, her manner, he connected so much more with her than he had with “ people like him“. One by one, the shells he built around his core fell away. 

She was very different from the picture he had painted of her in his mind; for he had seen her as he saw the world. And everyone is built differently. She was what she was, and she was beautiful.

They spoke of nothing concrete, but still spoke of much. They were parallel banks of a river, on their own separate journeys; yet the words built bridges they didn’t even know existed.

He felt himself getting immersed in the depths of the conversation, in the depths of her; and he was floating, not drowning. 

It is difficult to immerse yourself in the depths of a person, and emerge unchanged…

The train whistled, signalling the next stop. The spell was broken. She got up from her seat abruptly.

“ That’s my stop,” she said. “ I really felt good talking to you. I guess this is goodbye. I hope we meet again someday” 

An awkward handshake, and she walked away.

Words can change the meaning of a book. Seconds can change the course of a lifetime. 

In that spilt second, as he watched her walk away, the Artist realised something. The inspiration he was looking for was not a destination, it was a journey. And he had found the person he wanted by his side through it all. 

They say a single event can redefine your perspective. Shatter and rearrange everything you always thought was unbreakable, till you see the world again, in a new light. Often, that event is a person. 

He sat there frozen, a storm of a thousand thoughts flooding his mind. There was so much he didn’t know. So much that could go wrong. But there was only one way to find out. Time to take a leap of faith.

She was near the door now, she turned to wave out to him. “Goodbye”. Everything stood still. It was just the two of them, and a moment frozen in time. Then she smiled. It was a ray of purest sunshine that cleared all the clouds and pulled him out of his slumber.

Now or never. 

He got up from his chair of comfort, and took a single step forward…

The train lurched to a stop. The Artist woke up with a start, his heart pounding. It took him a moment to find himself. For a second, he was young and full of vigour. Then his eyes found focus; he saw his gnarled old hands, with parchment skin and the spots of age. A lock of curly white hair danced in his vision. The same soul, in an aging vessel.

He smiled. The memory of the Lady, of that day, always did that to him. Across time, space or anything else that had ever separated them. He turned to the seat next to him and looked at her, resting there. She still looked the same. The same glow, the same vitality, even after all these years. A lifetime spent together, and yet it seemed like just a moment.

There Lady was so much more than the picture he had painted. She was a person, full of beauty and warmth and so many imperfections. Just like him. Just like all of us are so much more than the pictures painted of us.

Their journey together had been a long one, but worthwhile, every step of the way.

He picked her up from the chair, and wiped a speck of dust from her frame. She smiled back at him from the canvas, an echo of that moment, so many years ago. He could almost see her waving goodbye. A single tear rolled down his cheek, not of sorrow, but of fulfilment, of gratitude.

He smiled back at her and said: “I think my love, we have reached our station.  Time to get off the train” 

So saying, they stepped into the sunlight.  Together. Always. 

My older blog posts are listed at the top of the page.
If you liked this, do read the others too!

Follow the blog to receive regular updates on new posts:

 ( Click the follow button in the column to the right ! )

|| Shree Ram ||

|| Ambadnya ||

|| Naathsanvidh ||

|| I Love You my Dad ||

-DrArnavMHT 

14/4/22