Anniversary!! Artnlight turns 5! :)

Artnlight completes 5 years today. 5 years of seeing any new & nice thing & only thinking of putting it up here. 5 years of seeing a nice thing & because it is personal & private to me or someone else, being frustrated that I can't post about it here. When I started blogging in a blur of love, I never thought I will be doing it with equal excitement 5 years down the line. Infact I just didn't think. I just wanted to have a blog of mine so bad, that I started. Like every big decision in my life, this blog too happened because no thought was possible in the face of the beauty & headiness of it. There have been times when I have wanted and taken my time away from here, only to come back with more eagerness & even obsessiveness. 5 years of finding time, making time in my craziest busy times, sad times, happy times to post something here. I know I haven't been a regular blogger, but what I do here has sustained me in my darkest hours. But most amazingly it has changed me. From closed to open, from an employee to an entrepreneur, from 'I don't know how this will work' to 'lets just try it & what if it does'. And it is this space has given that to me & it is all of you who've come back to read this blog who have given that to me.

It is with a lot of gratitude that I sit to put this post together. Gratitude for the people whom I met through this blog whose work has changed my work, whose way of seeing something has changed mine.  Gratitude to all of you who have encouraged me just by coming here & reading what I write, to each one of you who have stopped & taken the time out to comment. I can't tell you enough how much that has meant to me & how it has kept me going. I just want this month to be a very exciting time for the artnlight reader and I will try my best to make it so for you with Anniversary posts which have a give-away or just some special news for all of you. So I wrote to a few people who have walked this journey with me, who have been special to me & inspired me and asked if they would like to make a post or be featured here.

Kickstarting this month of celebrating ARTNLIGHT is Dithi Mukherjee the artist whose work has me in awe.She has a new blog called Dithitara which all of you MUST check out :)

 

I have never met her in the offline world, and yet the connection I feel with her is more real than many friendships I have made. We have only spoken on the phone and mail- many mails:) I had asked her if she would like to put together something that is close to her heart and anything that inspires her. And you will see how her post is as poetic as her work. Handing it over to Dithi Mukherjee.

Here’s my little token of gratitude for you Vineeta, for being an inspiration and for bringing to us a world of beauty, on the 5 year anniversary of Artnlight: some images from home (taken in Kolkata and Shantiniketan); moments that embody the light and beauty that i draw strength from, the core that helps me express.

Art is the Light ~ a sufi song that transports the mind, frees the heart and heals the soul.

Ribbons and threads of gold gleams in the warmth of a setting summer Sun,

dancing in the gentle breeze, fertile with the smell of Ganga that wafts through a Kolkata ghat.

 

Bowls of red thick with the love of a thousand Kalighat Joba blooms, with alta, pola and sindur.

(Bengali: Joba: hibiscus, alta: red pigment traditionally used to adorn the feet of married Bengali women, sindur: vermillion,

Hibiscus has a special significance in Kalighat as it is the chosen bloom to be offered to Maa Kali)

 ‘The places you see, the things you make and the people you meet will fuel you forever.’ They also say that ‘when the student is ready, the teacher appears’ (Buddhist proverb). For all of us who are lucky to know and learn from you Vineeta & your Artnlight, for me personally, you water the seeds of beauty in our consciousness with all that you make and with all that you share. Thank you for inspiring and thanks for holding my/our hand(s) as we unfold our own myths, as we explore our own individual journeys. Keep shining and spread the love, let it grow and make you complete.

Dithi, thank you for this beautiful post & the generous give away. Yes :) you can now win this Dithi Print called 'Away from Home'. 

And to win this give away all you need to do is: 

1.Comment on this post saying what you have enjoyed most on Artnlight in the last 5 years.

2. Like Dithi's page on FB.

Commenting will be open for a week after which we will choose a winner :) :)

The participation for this give-away is not limited to India (yeee!!!!) so where ever you are, comment away & like Dithi's page & you are ooonnnn!!!!