Competitions in DAV

I did my initial schooling in DAV SSS (Dayanand Anglo Vedic Senior Secondary School) Mogappair, Chennai. I used to participate in almost all the competitions which were conducted in the school. I still remember practicing with my mother, with her warm encouragement, for competitions like elocution, recitation in various languages (including Hindi, Sanskrit, English and occasionally in Tamil) and Fancy Dress competitions. In art, I was inspired by my mother, looking at her oil paintings, though I never really wanted to learn from her as everything looked complex, and on top of that she really appreciated how I drew, back then. So in other competitions like drawing & painting and extempore, I had to rely on my skills of creativity and courage to get the first prize. Dancing was the only competition I gave up on, as I was a bit on the heavy side and quiet chubby too (surprisingly they were healthy symptoms for a premature baby).

My debut was in a Fancy dress competition, dressed up as Charlie Chaplin when I was in LKG (Lower KinderGarten). I don’t quiet remember how I performed on stage, but the judges and the audience were obviously impressed, as they found me cute and funny. Eventually I received the first prize. With that as a start, I aced in all the competitions that followed, through the years.

I considered myself a jack of all trades and a master of ‘some’. I liked Leonardo Da Vinci as he was a man of multiple talents. And one of the reasons I saw myself in him was because he was a very good artist, philosopher and added to that, he had an inquisitive mind of an inventor, which was true for me as well.

This particular competition I want to recount was a drawing & painting competition, conducted in my school by an organization called Future Kids. Frankly at that time I never cared what big institutions were, as long as they kept their end of the bargain, to sponsor the prize, and allow me to gloat with appreciation all around me.

It was the first time I was thrown head first into tough competition as I was the youngest in my age group, among celebrity artists who were my seniors up to almost three years in age difference.

I was late for the competition and I have to agree that punctuality is still never my forte and may never be, as I am content with what I am. I spent a bit more of my precious time trying to find a cozy place among the milling crowd of participants, to spread out my arsenal of paints and colours and begin my work.

I was never nervous when it came to competitions or crises, nor did I have stage jitters when it came to addressing crowds. Some people find it difficult to reproduce an image from their head, on paper. I never had that problem either, in fact, I was very good at maintaining proportions in my pictures. I also considered that the smaller and more intricate details are the ones which give a sense of realism in any form of art. Given all these advantages, I still was not able to complete my entry on time. With ten minutes left, I started giving the incomplete painting, finishing touches. To my disbelief, I ended up making the painting look like patch work, as beads of my perspiration, fuelled by the heat and humidity of Madras, made their way to the surface of the precious piece of art on the chart paper below me. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and managed to do last minute outlines and intricate designs, and I had to admit that after all that hard work, the painting surprisingly looked good (owing to the topic being “A Typical Village Scene”).

The next day, when the results were announced, I was both astonished and sad. Astonished because I had, against all odds, won a prize, sad because it was a third position, when I settled for nothing less than the first.

PS: I had just fallen down the dark and deep rabbit hole and dirtied my fluffy white tail and a whole new adventure lay in front of me in the wonderland of computers.