Hey there!
A few days ago, something amazing happened. This blog, The Art Diary, my most favourite brainchild, turned two years old!
This realisation hits pretty hard, to be honest. Because two years ago, when I started this blog on a random Sunday, I didn’t have the slightest clue about how far this journey would be or how important this small act could mean to me and so many others around me. I didn’t know how big a part this blog would play in my life.
Over the years, The Art Diary has become my portfolio, an online journal, a safe space for my thoughts, a virtual museum for my art, a huge part of my identity, the place where I get to showcase the real (sometimes sad, sometimes funny) me and in the process, find like-minded folks because of it all! It’s not merely a newsletter, but a tiny, virtual manifestation of my true self. It has given me so much freedom to display the ever-passionate and never-satisfied artist in me. It has given a home to a huge chunk of my soul. Most of all, it has allowed people, my people, to find my work in the vast sea called the internet. People who appreciate my efforts, my existence and often end up becoming my friend, directly or indirectly.
In the very beginning, I shared the blog link with only a handful of people. I let only my closest friends know about the blog and subscribe to it, since I was feeling extremely shy and awkward to let the extended part of my world know that I was taking a step forward and was venturing into the unknown world of blogging. I was afraid that if I failed at this, if I made a fool out of myself, then a large audience is the last thing I needed. Falling on your face and getting laughed at by your best friends is one thing. Once they’re done laughing, they’ll pull you back up on your feet and you can smack them on the back of their heads. But letting your heart be naked in front of the not-so-close people in another thing. As an introvert, it takes years to live down the humiliation. So I kept my new blog very private for a while.
But with each new post, I gained more confidence and somehow, to my huge surprise, I gained a bigger audience as well. Day by day, month after month, I have watched the number on the subscribers list become the beautiful 3-digit number that it is today. Which makes me very, very grateful to each and every one of my readers, old and new, for trusting me enough to both follow and share my work.
I’ve never been one to hide my work and keeping it completely private, just for myself. Nor have I been one to get on the rooftops and give myself a shoutout, announcing my self-worth to the world and urging them to take a look at my hard work.
My style is to do the work in silence, to give my best and be ready to let anyone interested take a look into my mind and understand me a little better. Because, after all, that’s the reason I create in the first place, right? To be understood. By myself and the world. Being valued, respected, admired or loved are just added bonuses.
So this makes me wonder how much you, my dear friends, both old and new, know about me truly. Because there are so many new people here and also because, being an introvert, I am often not the most “seen” person. Maybe some of you have wondered about the person behind these words. Maybe you haven’t. Either way, I still feel that it is my responsibility to give you a closer and clear look at the person whose words you’re taking your time to read on a regular basis, so that we can bridge our bond further. So that we’re less like strangers and more like online friends. The kind that knows each other better than most “IRL” friends do.
But I didn’t want this to be a boring, introductory session with a basic bio data of me. It doesn’t really matter for you to know my parents’ names or my favourite colour (I have too many). The purpose of this is to know the important things about me. The details that make me, me.
So I asked a few close friends to throw me a few questions/ideas that would get me thinking about things beyond the surface and come up with “if not interesting, at least not too boring” kind of things to say about me. Especially things that wouldn’t make me look like a total narcissist, since it is the last thing I ever want to be.
Below are a list of information about me, all of it being personal, accurate and authentic. I hope you have fun reading these and getting to know me further!
The day I turned 8 years old is one of the happiest days of my life. That was one of the very few times I had a proper birthday celebration. The few days before my birthday had been pretty special themselves. I had secured the first rank in my class during the mid term exams and had received the prize just the day before. I came home and surprised my grandfather with the prize and he was SO happy for me.
That evening, my aunts came over with their families. Everyone congratulated me for my achievement. The elders went out to shop for decorations for the next day while my cousins played with me. I remember the red top and denim skirt I was wearing that day. I also remember holding my new shiny achievement in my hands for 2 days straight, only to drop it too many times until it eventually broke apart a little and I scolded by mom.
On the day of my birthday, the house was decorated with streamers and balloons and was filled with people. My special outfit for the day was a pink and white lehenga set with many shiny stones glued to the synthetic fabric. (Over the next few months, I had fun picking out the stones and playing with them. 😅) I don’t remember the details about the cake or the gifts. But I remember feeling special and very happy to be alive, surrounded by so many loving faces. I remember thinking life was great in that moment.
I had my grandfather with me for only 2 more birthdays and my aunts’ families never got together for my birthdays like that ever again. So it is a memory I will cherish forever.
I have many, MANY online friends.
Back in 2015, I came across the Google Plus platform and quickly became a part of its diverse community. I made my first internet friends there. Keerthana from Malaysia and Gokul from Chennai. I also met my best friend of 6 years on the app.
In a few years, when the app started dying, Instagram had already become a vital part of my everyday life. Though initially I used Instagram mostly for memes and entertainment, the universe somehow turned it into the holy sanctum where I would stumbled upon artists of various mediums - photography, writing, painting, sketching, cinematography, film making, hula hooping, etc. in every direction I turned. These people/accounts inspired me and shaped the way I viewed the world and art.
In between all of this, I spoke and connected with so many people on the internet. Engineers, software developers, chefs, content writers, poets, writers, doctors, directors, photographers, music artists, cinematographers, models, etc., both amateurs and professionals, have crossed my path and taught me a thing or two about their lives.
I have met some of my closest friends online. I like making friends across various walks of life, mostly for fun. But also because it helps me understand other people better, which definitely helps with my writing. Maybe I’ll do a separate blog on online friendships sometime. What do you think?
The very first novel I read was the book Heidi by Johanna Spyri, back when I was around 9 years old. But my actual reading journey started with the famous Harry Potter series, in late 2015, when I stepped into my school library for the sake of accompanying a friend.
(No so fun fact: I accidentally started with book 2 of the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 20 pages in, I realised by mistake and went back to get the first book)
I haven’t given up on reading since. I have read over 130 novels so far and a handful of non-fiction books as well.
When did you start writing? / Do you see art as a way of expressing your thoughts and feelings or is it just a hobby you developed?
In early 2017, I had a major falling out with a friend. Soon we parted ways and I felt extremely overwhelmed by it all. The arguments, the possessiveness (mostly on my part), the misunderstanding (on both sides) and both our massive egos heightened by our collective teenage angst.
I had to let it all out. So I pulled out the Notes app on my phone and scribbled out some random nonsense into a fresh page. I had not read much literature at that time, so I believed that what my newbie 17-year-old self had scribbled out, was poetry.
This quickly became a habit of mine - turning my overwhelmed thoughts into incoherent mumbo jumbo that didn’t really make much sense. But at least it served the purpose of calming me down a little. I kept at it, mostly turning my personal feelings into virtual documentations, moulded, packaged and ribboned up with a lot of my creative energy.
Thankfully, I lost all of my early “poems” when my phone suffered a major accident in 2018. So now, as a much better writer, I am saved from the horrible experience of having to look at them and cringing so hard that my face would contort into a crushed paper ball. I have enough cringing to do as it is.
For me, art has always been a means of communication, never merely just a hobby. Even if the story I’m writing is not mine, the emotions I convey are a manifestation of my own. Art has always been about feeling connected to the world and feeling like I’m a part of it.
Aarthiyin Auto Payanangal - Back in early 2021, when I was working as a Content Writer at a company in KNK Road, I would take the share auto home every evening. The ride took about 40-50 minutes on a good day. I usually sat at the passenger seat, near the driver, since I liked the view and also because I didn’t like getting crammed by the other passengers in the middle rows. But sometimes I got stuck in the middle or the back too.
With my motion sickness, I couldn’t really check out my phone for long. So I watched everything happening around. This is how I started learning the art of people watching and story building.
I saw couples on motorcycles making everyone around jealous. I overheard aunties gossip and rant into their phones in loud voices. I tried to tune out the patchwork of noises coming from all around as random uncles scrolled through Facebook and young women paused on WhatsApp love statuses posted by fellow amateur romantics.
I watched in horror as my share auto driver rushed to play rummy on his phone at every red signal. I caught glimpses of cute babies and naughty kids inventing new levels of trouble for their parents.
I saw old people struggle to get into the vehicle with the high-rise entrance. I saw strangers ignoring each others’ existence. I witnessed strangers helping out each other with no selfishness at all. I saw people being people. Both human and inhuman. I saw life up close.
This is where my love for public transport started. During all of this, I put up a train of WhatsApp statuses each day, visible only to my closest non-judgemental friends, about everything I saw, in short, quirky, fun stories. I called the series Aarthiyin Auto Payanangal, like Chutti TV’s Doravin Payanangal. My friends responded with an array of responses on most days. They loved it and wanted me to do more of it. That’s how the idea for starting this blog was born.
Your art is quite organised and structured. But how are you as a person? I’m afraid that my mother will glare at me disapprovingly if I said that I am indeed a very organised person. Because to be honest, I’m far from being well organised with my life.
But I do enjoy order and structure very, very much. The clothes hanging in my wardrobe are colour coordinated, if that helps. And I have a gazillion folders on all my devices - phone, laptop, hard disk, pendrives, etc. since I feel content while putting things in order and feel right at home in well-organised spaces.
Though, I’m yet to bring proper form and flow into my life as a whole. I’ve been working on it for a while now and am hoping that it will become an actual reality in the nearest possible future.
My favourite author happens to be Rick Riordan, the author of the famous Percy Jackson books. I love all of his books with all of my heart, soul, kidneys and liver. If you like my sense of humour, then there’s a good chance that you will like his too. (But please avoid the movies. Just don’t go anywhere near them. If you can’t read, then try the audiobooks. They’re wonderful or please wait for the Percy Jackson live-action show coming out this December. It’s supposed to be really good as well. But the movies? No no no. NO.)
Who is your role model?
I have soo many role models, to be honest. My mom happens to be on the top of the list, when I think about courage and strength.
Next, when it comes to writing, I look up to writers like Rick Riordan, Neha Chaudhary, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Fredrick Backman, Ruskin Bond, Cecelia Ahern, Rabia Bhatia, Meera Ganapathi, etc.
In photography, I love the works of Mehran Djojan, Aishwarya Ashok, Tarun Chouhan, Sivagnanavathy Ksk and Xenie Zasetskaya to name a few.
Nata Sin, James Musil, Guan, Heikala and Noor are some of my favourite painting artists.
The list does not end here. But I guess you’ll have an art overdose after checking out so much good art and get admitted in the ER. So I will hold off on spamming you for now and do a longer post where I talk in length about so many of my favourite artsy humans!
My favourite subject in school was Maths. To this day, I love Maths with a passion that I have never felt for anything else in life.
Someone asked me what my world, my inner world, sans people looks like. I told him I didn’t think I had an inner world with no people in it.
In all my 23 years, I’ve only known to live life by associating things with the humans related to it. Right now, when I look around my room, almost everything in it is connected to the people in my life, old and new.
The headphones I’m wearing was given to me by a family member. That book sitting on my desk, I brought it home from the library for my grandmother to read. Beside it is a green, paper Christmas tree made and gifted to me by A. The Baby Yoda painting stuck to my wall was supposed to be with my best friend S, but it stays with me now. There’s a bakery & snack shop in Anna Nagar that I associate with a person whom I also associate with the colour lavender. My perima helped pick out the t-shirt I’m wearing right now, in Bangalore 5 summers ago.
So I told my friend that the mere thought of me having an inner world devoid of other people’s influence seems dumb to me. Like, impossible. But he got me thinking anyway.
What am I, minus all the people that have touched and left imprints on my life? I don’t know. Yet. But I have to find a concrete, at least somewhat coherent answer to that big, profound, annoying question that G has chosen to throw at me. When I do the answer, if I do find the answer, I will let you know, hopefully.
But for now, I will be wrapping up this impromptu introductory session so as to not bore you to death. I shall be going away and hiding under a rock, embarrassed by the too much information I’ve spilled out about myself, out here, for everyone to see! I’ll be speaking to myself in soft, soothing tones, to help calm the introverted squishy caramel centre of my being which does not do well with being so exposed in public. But I chose this writer life. I have to live with it. I’m learning to.
Hope you had fun knowing me. Let me know your thoughts through comments and DMs. If you have more questions, shoot them as well. If you found anything relatable, tell me all about that too! That’s what friends are for, right?
Warm hugs and many thanks for being here, for choosing to be my friend,
A. 🌻
Wow two years! Its been a pleasure to see it grow✨ wishing you the best❤️
I am stuck to my phone while I read this smiling softly. ❤️