Evening in Varda
Ram and Manohar Singh throw their heads
back and guzzle streams of Haywards Super
Strong 5000. It is late evening in the village of
Varda, the setting sun is encircling the Aravali
hills, and the peacock that moves to his special
tree each night can be heard crying his usual cries.
He struts in the tangle of brush, just behind the
tree. Manohar is my studio landlord. He is keeneyed,
weather-wise, quick to smile or frown, and
always happy to join us on the roof. He, along with
his wife and son, share a small space in a mud
house that is just adjacent to this half-finished
place I ‘ve rented. At one point in time, my studio,
was Manohar’s dream… a concrete house that
would become their new family home. But, the
family ran out of money while the place was still a
shell. What are now the workrooms of the Varda
studio was once a space Manohar could neither
live in nor rent out… except to a crazy artist
such as myself. The building has open holes and
unfinished windows. The stairwell opens to the
sky. But for Ram and Manohar Singh, the Varda
studio is now a moneymaker, and a good place to
sit in the evenings with Ganpat, Jai Prakash and
I. On the roof, we share stories, beedis, beers,
whiskeys, and village wine.
Varda is, nearly, a thirty-minute