JOIN USMiracles do occur when we least expect them to happen. This was also the case with me. My sister and I had gone down to the miniscule front garden to enjoy the sun for a bit, cooped up as we were for days because of the lockdown. The sun, however, played hide and seek as we settled down on a stone bench. Suddenly what do I see from behind the dark lush leaves of the croton plant but my lost Modigliani, a languid print of the famous painting Gypsy Woman with Baby done in pastel colours mounted on a white frame, staring right across at me from her hiding place. All coy and pretty with rosy cheeks and dark hair, with the baby swaddled in her arms, she made my heart jump with joy. Oh, there is my Modigliani, I shouted overjoyed at my find, while my sister remained cool for what it was she who had banished the French artist to while engaged in the act of decluttering my flat. She had cursorily jettisoned a lot of my stuff, utensils, unused bags and baskets, but what broke my heart was her junking of my favourite painting which she had clubbed with the dented pots and pans.
When I came down with a somewhat debilitating illness for six months, my dear sister who was visiting me from Canada took good care of me. She was with me until I got better, was well on my feet, fit and fine. There she was raring to get back home to her children and grandchildren, but with international flights banned because of the Coronavirus, she had to stay put in India.
Was it any surprise then that I could not believe my own eyes when I caught sight of the elegant portrait? And my second surprise, that the painting had braved sun and rain to stay untarnished, unchanged for almost six months. What would you call it… miracle, coincidence, God’s gift?
I brought up the picture almost hugging it, wondering at the hardy survival of art. I had bought the print sixty years ago at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. for a mere three or four dollars. And the print had seen no change in texture, colour or beauty in spite of its sojourn outdoors under a croton plant amidst the buffetings of nature. Amidst the lockdown and the gloom that the virus had spread around the world, this small miracle sure had brought a ray of sunshine into my existence.