Delhiwale: X-raying an artist

Proust questionnaire with Aradhana Seth

How to describe her? Painter? Production designer? Photographer? Producer or film maker?Oh well, Aradhana Seth is an artist. And like most members of this restless species, she is able to rustle out pieces of creativity even under the most trying circumstances. Despite being home-bound due to the coronavirus pandemic, the lady is still occupied in her primary pursuits. Recently, she sorted out the thousands of photographs she had accumulated over the previous years. And currently she is painting with... attention please, here’s some corona-era story!

Aradhana Seth (HT Photo)

You’ll agree that the usual paint colours are not exactly the ‘essential commodities’ of these troubled days that one can get from the neighbourhood grocer. So, Ms Seth is sourcing her colouring ingredients from fruit, vegetables and flowers. For instance, she gets her red from beetroot, carrot, pomegranate and red wine; yellow from haldi and tesu ke phool; and green from papaya leaf and palak ke patte.

“See, I made my Fish on Zoom with beetroot, red cabbage, neem juice and sesame seeds,” she says, showing a panel of nine painted fish, each to its small box—the artwork is looking exactly like the laptop screen Zoom meetings of our new-normal interactions. Ms Seth is chatting on WhatsApp video from the isolation of her home (which has partially been turned into a studio!) in Noida where she shares the “dinner arrangements” daily with father, Prem Nath, and brother Vikram. “With a great amount of help as well as oil” from their cook, Basanti.

She gamely agreed to become a part of our Proust Questionnaire series in which we nudge folks from diverse backgrounds to make “Parisian parlour confessions”, all to explore the lives, thoughts, values and experiences of Delhi’s citizens.

Your favourite virtue or the principal aspect of your personalityIntuition. Independence of thought. Finding beauty in small things.

Your favourite qualities in a manHumility. Intelligence. Humour. Tenderness

Your favourite qualities in a womanCreativity. Intelligence. Humour. Sensitivity

Your chief characteristicA visual and visceral mind

What do you appreciate the most in your friends?Warmth. Honesty. Non-judgemental

Your main faultImpatience and being over-sensitive

Your favourite occupationExperimenting with new materials, ideas and thoughts

Your idea of happinessBeing in water: walking in the rain, at the beach, snorkeling

Your idea of misery or what would be your greatest misfortune?At the moment, it would be living in a Covid facility

If not yourself, who would you be?Dolphin

Where would you like to live?Where I mostly live—in Goa

Your favourite colour and flowerWhite. Gardenia and Peony

Your favourite birdParrot. Beautiful, intelligent—and they mimic human speech!

Your favourite prose authorsVirginia Woolf. Jane Austen. Beatrix Potter. Satyajit Ray

Your favourite poetsMichael Ondaatje. Leonard Cohen. Vikram Seth. Bob Dylan

Your favourite heroes in fictionThe Little Prince in The Little Prince. Maan Kapoor in A Suitable Boy. Snoopy by Charles M. Schulz. Dorian—though an awful human in The Picture of Dorian Gray, he gives me an insight and understanding into temptation and destruction

Your favourite heroines in fictionAmmu in The God of Small Things. Charulata in the novella/Ray Film. Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (the film version of it more than the book. Meryl Streep is so good and horribly real!)Cleopatra Piyali Roy in The Hungry Tide

Your favourite composersGiacomo Puccini. Shankar and Jaikishan. Naushad Ali. The Beatles

Your favourite painters/artistsVermeer. Jamini Roy. Zarina Hashmi. Salman Toor. Anslem Keifer. Egon Schiele. Hasegawa Tōhaku.

Your heroes/heroines in real lifeAlbert Einstein. Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King. Golda Meir. Thich Naht Hanh

What characters in history do you most dislike?Those that are inhuman, narcissistic, fascists, dictators: sadly there are so many… dead and alive

Your favourite food and drinkSushi and Saki. Curd Rice and fish pickle. Campari

Your favourite namesTara. Ayesha. Noor. Purnima. Graciella

What do you hate the most?Dictatorial behaviour. Unfairness. The caste system. Religious intolerance

The military event you admire the mostI don’t. I feel that it is a form of legalized killing.“Imagine there’s no countriesIt isn’t hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion tooImagine all the people living life in peace, you…You may say I’m a dreamer”—John Lennon/ Paul McCartney

The natural talent you’d like to be gifted withTo be able to sing

How do you wish to die?Unaware and oblivious. In a flash!

What is your present state of mind?Tortured and calm. Tortured about the world we are living in. Calm when in a cacoon!

Faults for which you have the most toleranceJealousy

Your motto in lifeSimplicity is the ultimate sophistication