I read a book today by alice sebold, titled 'the lovely bones'. a book that isbound to stay in my heart for a long long time, and in my mind for an even longer time. for some reason, her chronicle of a family's lfe after the loss of one of their own, about death and after life, about despair, helplessness and how life, so normal, so promising, can be taken one day, of murder, actually made me think about life, and the power of art. art, that mode of creation that made loss melancholy, distant, but beautiful, that could take the ugliest experiance of your life and turn it into somehting so beautiful, so pure, so perfect.

art is that power, the power of creation. its like a tiny spoonful of that power that we credit nature and almighty with, that has been given to us. we may not be able to create life like them, but we can create things that make life more than just breathing for us. and in this lies the ultimate answer to the endless questions. art not as means to be displayed on museum walls, galleries, theatres, or anyother place for that matter. art not as somehting to show off or an extra curricular activity that will increase your chances of getting into harvard. but art as that moment when you finally face the whirlwind that had been troubling you forever and then pen down a poem that will stay back as the memory of something that only you had witnessed, or a painting that will describe it better than you could to a therapist in words, and everytime you look at it, will unfold silently a part of you that you didnt know existed before.

we go through our lives, trying to add a comomnly agreed upon structure to it. we make plans, we set deadlines, we celebrate festivals, we pray when we are scared, we eat, we brush our teeth. we evade screaming little parts of us till they become big enough to scare us into either shutting them off completely or hiding from them. we look at sunlight everyday and either recite a line we read in some motivational book so fitfully, convincing ourselves that somehow, screaming it long enough would make it sound true. or lookig at the sunlight and seeing a large rut awaiting us in the form of predictability. many, just ignore the fact that sun shone, and this time the sky was more bluer than yesterday, or that the moon is bigger. they take it for granted that there are more mornings than events in their life, just like there are more breaths than moments. we claim to be humans, better than animals, and different from robots in our ability to emote, but we live our live like a mixed breed version of both that is either too busy screaming out their emotions so that it deafens them, or too busy analyzing logic from any angle that doesnt require you too face them.

yet, once in a while you come across that movie, that book, that painting, that poem, or that face, even that building, that shakes you back into its reality. somehow reading about those strange people who only exist in two dimensions, or watching that face that you dont know the name of, or raed those words, that never came from your mouth, transports you into a space from where you can see. you can see how your well planned life that never quite stuck to the planner, turning into a puzzle with different peices that never fit, had somehow fallen in place. in these moments, when you have no fear, no apprehension, no plan to follow, no people to please, no responsibilities to shoulder, no grief to cry about. in these moments when you feel this power of expression, this creation of someone who doesnt even know you, you land up finding that the days you live arent unconnected accidents, but like the charms of a bracelet, all different, but connected by the chain of your life. that in some weird way, despite the predictable motion sickness caused by this roller coaster ride, despite the fears that things were getting worse than better, that there are more graves than cradles, life had actually managed to bloom.

of course once we are past this stage, when we experiance the blast of the power of human expression and creation full frontal, most go back to being the same. miracles, after all, arent human domain. but still, to those who have lived and experianced a miracle called art, and believd in it, i say, have a great day.