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As I dismounted the panel from easel & wrapped up for the day, I realized I’d missed creating my masterpiece yet again.

It got me thinking what would I do when I finally made one. And that got me writing this blog.

In March this year, I got to travel to Bhutan – a tiny country nestled in the folds of the mighty Himalayas. But tiny it be, I was bowled over by the richness of its culture, the Bhutanese cuisine, the warmth in its people & an omnipresence of awe-inspiring natural beauty. The land is cheap there & the country is very friendly towards us Indians – their benevolent and supportive neighbor. As I climbed the 700-odd steps to the Tiger’s Nest, I thought owning a plot of land in this beautiful piece of heaven would not be too outlandish an idea.

But as I stared across the vast hilly expanse, it occurred to me what would I truly achieve – a home-away-from-home?

But wait - didn’t I want not-a-home-away-from-home? Where I can escape to a few days of pure bliss - a lazy pace of life, unfettered by the demands of my daily grind? A getaway?

Where you spend a few days & then come back recharged to face the daily chores in the refreshed familiarity of your home. Yes, a getaway.

So, a getaway should remain a getaway. Like a masterpiece. Can happen once, or even twice but not every day. Not all the time.

The same thought came to me when I lost a competition that I won last year. The judge was different, the entry was different & so were the odds.

I could have won. But I did not. Competitions can’t be won every day.

Unless of course, it’s another competition. Another getaway. Another masterpiece.

As if to prove this point, I did win a couple of other competitions – one of them after 4 long years (Splash 24)!

The Digital Badge I received after my painting was shortlisted for printing in Splash 24.

Variegated - Delft (No 2) - one of the images shortlisted in Readers' Competition for printing in Art Of Watercolour Magazine (50th issue)

And this brings us to the point I wanted to write about today. Balance.

You see an athlete can lose in the 100 m sprint but could still win the long jump. Like I did in that competition.

Your masterpiece need not be the watercolor you’re striving for – it could be the sculpture you’re also working on or that collage you started the other day, or that piece of poetry you’ve been secretly writing.

Balancing things may increase your chances of success. It certainly brings in that variety in your life that creates the freshness you feel when coming home from a getaway.

I think Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rabindranath Tagore, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Aristotle … and all the other great polymaths of history, understood this very well. They all knew how to balance their passion & interests.

In May this year, I was commissioned by a very well-known Publishing house (Golden Peak Media) to do an interview with a famous Indian artist & then write a feature on him.

With Artist Prafull Sawant, on whom I wrote the feature

It has always been my endeavor – apart from my painting of course – to write about the art & artists of my country. For one, this is a way of paying tribute to my native art & culture which has given me so much. And for the other, this form of art research & then writing about it helps me create a sort of balance in my art practice.

So that there’s never a dull moment for me. Let alone be repetition.

I was overjoyed with this commission as it fed my passion for writing & I grabbed it with both hands. The next few weeks saw me rushing to fix up the questionnaire, doing background research on the artist & trying to schedule an interview, even before he was back to India from his overseas workshops. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Then on a May day, I drove down to him, some 160 km away, & spent an excellent 2 hours in his studio. I came back with enough material to put together a 2000-word feature.

Next few weeks went into editing, drafting, then again re-editing the text, selecting images for the piece & composing captions & checking for copyrights. And then it was done!

The same issue in which this feature was to appear, was running another article by me, which was finished long back, but certain polishing needed to be done on that as well.

These few weeks, I could hardly come close to the easel, as balancing this activity with my regular 9-to-5 was itself proving to be very difficult!

And I may add here, that many times I’ve been advised by my friends & well-wishers to leave my 9-to-5 & delve completely into art – but I kept both things going, as it helped me to balance my life and derive pleasure and satisfaction from both.

And soon enough, just as my son told me while he was going out for a few days, “Absence makes the heart go fonder”, I could start feeling the familiar pang of longing for my other passion – painting!

Then sometime on a June morning when the air was crisp after a quick shower & the sun shone, I put up a fresh panel for a landscape. And you could hardly imagine the charge of freshness, the pangs of hunger, the dash of determination & the sheer pleasure I felt for the next few hours!

I painted like crazy … with the gay abandon of a child!

Like that very 1^st day I began painting more than a decade ago, the experience was filled with fun, anticipation, promise & excitement … much like a Nolan movie or a salted caramel layered cheesecake! It was my best getaway in weeks!

And this is what I meant by balance. Engaging in different pursuits & interests. And if you balance them well, there could be a getaway just around the corner.

And maybe a masterpiece too!