Those three days

It seems so long ago…when I first smelled the stench wafting towards me. That August morning, as I saw the crescent moon giving way to the rising sun, I asked, ‘How timid of you that you arrive gleaming shamelessly every evening when your bully rests to return bright?”

Before, I got a reply, the stench took over my senses and got me uneasy. Quickly it grew denser, hovering closer and began suffocating me. Gulping to breathe in when I looked up, they poured it. Dumped it. Over my head. Sticky, yucky, I felt it reach my toes.

The filth in their minds, they dumped on me and walked away with impunity.

I washed away the dirt. But the stench lingered.

The following day, they brought another bucket of sewage washed from their insides.

I washed away the dirt. But the stench lingered.

The third day, they had no more mirth. Yet they wrenched and spat.

I washed away the dirt. But the stench lingered.

And then he came to me. Neil Gaiman. He advised: ‘Make mistakes. Make glorious mistakes, because it means you are out there doing something!’

I sat up, puppy-eyed looking harder at him, desperately reading his lips, greedy to learn the words before it spilled out. And I held dearly to his mantra, “…in good times and bad, when the going gets tough, remember – Make Good Art! Someone on the internet thinks what you are doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before, Make Good Art! Time will take the sting [read stench here] out. But do only what you can do best. Make Good Art!”

So here’s raising a toast to Gaiman,

For making me wiser than those men!

I plead to Thee, to give them peace

As I turn the stench into what only I CAN!

Make Good Art!

The next morning when I saw the crescent moon give way to the rising sun, I smiled and said, “How humble of you to arrive gleaming every evening, unmindful of the bully sun, artistically changing shapes in a rhythm of your own!”

My modesty makes me say… This, indeed, is a Good Work of Art… [By the optician and my husband Sanjeev]