Blue (January)

Galleries derelict, towns countrified, alphabets disintegrated, fire turns blue into black. Shiva destroys every fabric: wall, bark, paper, skin. Colour returns to dust and sky. We who are gone never see the extent of loss. A thin blue line runs down the middle. When it opens Vishnu strides out, making from unmade, time again. Ocean erupts, beings team with life, music comes together, sky is a matrix of water. The anonymous nineteenth century Calcutta artist who painted this watercolour image (‘Blue: Alchemy of a Colour’, NGV January 2016) of the dual person Harihara operated through the realm of the senses.