12 colour crayon set

Covered with dust, flickered with cobwebs, under stacks of monopoly, scrabble and glass giant chess lies my 56 coloured crayon set that my parents got me when I was in grade 6. 

I am not a big fan of my 56 coloured crayon set.It lies there gathering dust while I ramble on about my 12 coloured crayon set. The set I got when I was in kindergarten. 

My 12 piece crayon lies in shambles. It has many broken pieces, both literal and metaphorical: it has got a split-in-two red colour, a tainted white colour, a light yellow one that makes my eyes hurt and on the next page is the broken pieces of the art I did when I was in kindergarten, the empty spaces between rough scribble of colour along with the mismatch of reddish shades I struggled to create while trying to colour an apple. There lies the broken pieces of myself in failed attempts of trying to paint a flower, a waterfall, some stairs, all existing, but in colour. In my 12 set crayon colours. 

It was the first ever crayon set I got. I still remember being excited when I saw my school list of stationeries to buy. In the art column, in bold was a crayon set waiting for me to devour. I was 6 years old. 

I took the crayons out, and then put them back in their case because I liked the sound of the snap and the thud the crayons make when they fit in the mould. 

I wonder why we humans do not fit in a perfect mould, when that is what the world expects us to do. 

To fit in a mould. 

To fit in a mould. 

To fit in a mould.

On Sundays, when I had my art classes, I desperately tried to not taint my crayons. They were pristine. The epitome of perfection. I used to move my fingers through all of the 12 colours, it would make me feel giddy. I loved the smoothness of the first few dashes of crayon against the paper, I loved turning them inwards while colouring a circle, and then holding them with utmost deliverance when I painted a broad space of canvas, without any line to stop me from colouring. I moved my hands across the paper with diligence and reckless freedom and colour every last inch. 

Art became a refuge from the chaos the world adhered to. I began professional art classes when I was 11. I used to travel all the way to Shahbag and climb 4 flights of stairs to get to a 4: 30 art class, every Friday. 

Cups, chairs, tables, pencils, a saucer.

A vase. All of these were my model for still life painting. I took them very seriously. Every Saturday, at noon, for 4 years, I'd sit down with a pen and my vase; a cup; a pear.

I struggled heavily while trying to draw a perfect circle or a perfect handle for my mug. I gave up when I couldn't and completed the painting with that zigzag of a line that made the mug look like an imperfect creation whereas thousands of Kumars had created the mug with the tiny curves of their hands, stroked the wet mud along their fingernails trying to shape the mud. Then waiting for the fruit of their labour to turn them into a working class human. A person ready to divulge into the materialistic world where no care was put in how much work had gone into making these beautifully carved cylindrical vessels.

I was just 6 years old when I got my first crayon. 

Crimson is one of my favourite colours. I didn't come face to face with that colour until I was 13. I was In awe. Crimson was not a shade included in the 12 crayon set. It was included in the 56. I loved the 56 crayon set but I loved the 12 set more. 56 has a lot of variation but the 12 is the original one. In a world where old things are replaced by new and better, I found myself complete in my 12 colour crayon set. 

I found ways to shade them into perfection,

I found a way to make a beautiful sunset out of my orange and yellow, sometimes the red. 

I hate the colour red. Maybe not, I do not hate it when my favourite person wears it, I don't hate it when the sky turns red, I don't hate it when my sister makes a red strawberry out of clay and gifts it to me. I hate it when it's in a 12 coloured set. It's not crimson, it's red. 

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Another day, another essay. I thank you for reading my jibber-jabber.

Leonard Nimoy as Spock & Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Live long & Prosper.