lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll etcetera

The life of

aai!

Photographs by Padmaja Parulkar-Kesnur

Padmaja Parulkar-Kesnur salutes her
mother’s innate, environment-nurturing
artistic sensibility

A
ai is an ‘artist’ with a capital A. No, she has not
sold artwork at boutiques or held exhibitions at
art galleries. She has not trained in fine art or seen
the insides of an art school. But Madhavi Parulkar has
an innate artistic sensibility that enables her to fashion tailoring episodes, as resource material. These patches
her home and life with an artisanal touch. In a matchbox later transformed into bed throws and quilts, a pastiche
house, the one of my childhood, wherever you look, you of my once-upon-a-time ‘hi-fashion wardrobe’.
will find some ‘work of art’—functional or purely decora-
tive. Chances are, it would be a new avatar of something In her book of life, nothing is a throwaway. Bits of paper
that has outlived its original purpose or use. The best part discarded during craftwork by grandchildren, gift wraps,
of her creativity is that it is environment-nurturing, where shopping bags, newspapers—nothing is spared or not
there is minimum generation and maximum recycling of kosher in her eyes. Doodling on theses scraps is one of
waste. This is not necessarily because she is environment- her favourite pastimes. I have laminated many of her
conscious but because, for her, odds and ends—cloth noteworthy pieces and gifted them as bookmarks! A
pieces, broken plates, paper, nuts, bolts, plastic, cracked glass bowl gets glossed over with paint and
bottles, you name it—are raw materials. craft a new lease of life, as table decoration. Attractive
liquor bottles get a fill of beetroot wash or some
Simplicity is the hallmark of her creativity. She has such thing and become accent pieces.
always been Spartan in her living, not out of choice,
perhaps, but because she was born into a family of modest Instead of splurging on easel
means. Her creativity was partly fuelled by necessity. As a and acrylics she makes the
kid, she designed her own costume jewellery walls her canvas. Like tribal
out of flowers and twigs that were folk who paint mud walls
abundant and free. Later in life, with kaolin or lime, she
she stitched her own designer sari makes murals in mono-
blouses from coarse khaddar as chrome. For a month,
she couldn’t afford fancy an entire wall in the
material or a tailor. Of living room became a
course, I was fortunate tableau of village life:
that I had her as my harvest festival, weddings,
personal fashion religious ceremonies, and
designer. One sum- everyday activities. The Warli
mer when we were to in white is the conversation
go on a long vacation, piece of her humble ‘salon’,
she designed an entire which is also her ‘studio’. Aai
ensemble for the now has other ‘designs’ on the
teen-me—frocks with wall—a Tinga Tinga painting,
frills, skirts with braided perhaps—now that the Warli has
pockets, shirt-tops with had faded out of the limelight.
bows—in a few sittings. Over
the years, she collected and stashed Indeed, in a house where space is at
bundles of leftover fabric from those premium, every corner or cranny gets

66 harmony celebrate age march 2018

Clockwise from left: utilised to maximum benefit without overdo-
The living room wall ing it. There are colourful cloth organisers or
adorned with Warli compartment hangers for storing stationery
drawings of harvest and bric-a-brac. One organiser has plastic
festival, weddings, see-through compartments made from
religious ceremonies discarded folders and files! Under her gaze,
and everyday a sturdy mithai box becomes a storage panel
activities; danglers for slipping earrings, to be hung by a dressing
made from table table. The modest, no-frill bathroom and toilet
mats; a patchwork are spitting clean with just one flower vase—a
quilt made from porcelain pickle jar of yesteryear—with shock-
leftover fabric ing red plastic flowers adorning the window
sill. She has a Midas touch and in her hands
Opposite page: even cheap paper flowers become kitsch art
Madhavi Parulkar; at its bespoke best. Any wonder then that for
doodles on scraps designing my brother’s wedding invitations
of paper made into and my visiting card, we looked no further?
bookmarks
Whether it is carpentry or origami, she is
good at reverse engineering. If I present her
a bird-feeder she will have another put up
alongside, handmade with further innovation
and artistry. Not for her Internet ideas or
Pinterest prompts; her inspiration comes from
within her creative reserves. If she has no use
for a tablecloth (with mats) someone gifts her,
she sews up two mats to make one small-size
cushion cover to go with the tablecloth that
becomes a cover for the divan. A simple and
stunning idea! When a friend was disposing
of her Ikea table mats, she cut out the birdies,
attached them to strings, and made danglers
to run down the niche of a window. With the
breeze, the birds gently sway to the back-
ground score of sparrows chirping at the bird
feeder in the balcony.
Not surprisingly, a person such as her has
green fingers too. A tiny cubicle open to
the sky is her container garden in which she
plants everything from bougainvillea to bon-
sai from cuttings and saplings obtained from
the wild. Buying saplings or fancy pots and
planters is anathema to her. The containers,
as you must have guessed, are repurposed.
The best part: she has never thought of
exploiting her talent for financial gain or
expected remuneration for requests she has
been flooded with, from friends and family.
Instead, she always ends up giving all her
artwork as gifts—that’s my Aai.
harmony celebrate age march 2018 67