The Blessed One
It was a sunny day, a Sunday in February. We were at our stalls, rather behind them in any available shade, during the one day Art Fest that is now becoming an annual feature of Chennai. Hot, sweaty, and eagerly looking out for any prospective art lovers passing by, I was happy to see a middle-aged man with a ready smile stop to keenly look at my work. While I was wondering if this perusing would soon translate into a sale, and trying to recollect again the prices that I had quoted for each, I was pleasantly surprised when the shortish, bespectacled man with greying temples said, “If you don’t mind could I ask you a few questions?”. “Sure”, I said, of course. A good conversation with random folks is what makes such events worth one’s time. “I have a daughter who’s in the 10 th now. And I have to help her take a decision soon about what to major in next year. All my friends and family members are advising me to put her in the science stream, to make her an engineer to secure her