We Are One!
It's a beautiful piece. It's an amalgamation of all that we are; all that we are meant to be. The basic, the man the woman. And here they are just that, the man and the woman, amalgamated. They are one and the same.
Here, the man and the woman are cojoined. It just reiterates that one phrase – '…woman the better half of man'. The shades of greys and whites in the painting show just that.
Where on hand we can see the dawn of a new day, on the other we see the receding of night. One side depicts life and the other life extinct. The river runs dry this side, on the other we see the river wash this death away and bringing with the rush of water, on its dry stony bed, a wave of life. Its just another way of showing the two halves of everything – the binary life form, the good and the bad, love and hate, night and day… so on and so forth, the two extreme degrees on any scale.
The ambiguity is commmendable. A bush in the corner – bursting into life or shriveling into death? The background – azure golden sky of morn or the dusk into nightfall? The sky above – clouding or clearing after a storm? Its all grey. The land parched with heat meets the sea , which washes the earth's face clean and refreshed.
The man and woman, central figures of the painting, the arms, the neck, their body one and the same. Their faces , if seen closely, resemble each other,one the reflection of the other. The only distinguishing mark – the moustache on the man's face.
Every detail brought on canvas so vividly alive. The dress of the woman, dewy with toil; sweat and soiled.The body detailed sensuously, yet strong; strong as a man's, not a mere fragile piece. The distinguishing marks on her body – the rounded breasts and the bangles on her wrist. The earthen pot hangs loose from the end of her fingers, dripping water on the parched earth; the last few precious drops dripping on to the parched, cracked earth from the earthen pot, the magical pot of life. This depiction just drives in the point more firmly than ever, The beginning and the end are inevitable.The earth meets the sea in one corner of the canvas. The drop of water falling from the pot onto the earth and the sea meeting the earth is so euphemistic. The drop of water from the earthen pot depicting a drop of life and the latter image of the sea meeting the earth bringing on a new wave of life, washing away all that is past. The drop of life – the blood of life – the life blood which flows free as the sea.
Deep crimson like the lifeblood are the bangles on the womans wrist, a symbol of marriage, the 'sati-savitri' at home breaking boundaries to be with the man in the fields, proving herself equal to the man. This strenghthens the point of the man and the woman being one.
Despite this oneness, why do we fight for separate identities? And doesn't this one painting epitomise that men and women are at par with each other, none the superior to the other. Then why the rending cry which goes on forever, of freedom, equality, separate identities? It is not a male dominated society, it is an androgynous society, a male-female society.
The atrocities against women in such a society are work of perverted minds, trying to break this equilibrium. The stress again and again on the point – 'women are feeble' by various mediums to make this point stolid in society over the years has made women a soft target, has made her weak, in mind, in soul. The woman has to realize this and be upto a man's mark in every way. She has to prove herself. then only can one appreciate the equality in work of the likes of Sobha Singh and others. And the love story forever sticks in the crags of the mind – 'Sohni-Mahiwal'.
