What Ganesha Wrote

The past week has been a busy one. My wife, Grace, and I have done some work in the garden and around the house; I ordered a screen for our front door; I finished (mostly) scraping off the paint that the previous owner of our home had used to cover up the glass in window of the downstairs door; I completed the draft of a short story; I wrote a guest blog post for another writer; we got the second of two Pfizer Covid-19 vaccinations; I posted a bunch of my art on Facebook in response to being nominated to show 10 pieces of art in 10 days; I read over an amended version of my contract with Readict; did some cooking; attended an online seminar on self-publishing; accepted a commission to design a logo; and probably did some other things.

We do not have boring lives. For people in our 70s, Grace and I keep pretty busy.

I am also manfully struggling through JAYA: An Illustrated Retelling of The Mahabharata, by Devdutt Pattanaik (the link is to Amazon, but I got my copy from eBay). I don’t know what it is about the Mahabharata that I find so fascinating, because it’s tough to keep all the names straight, and there’s lots of flash-forwarding and flashbacking. The Hindu god I admire most, Ganesha, supposedly wrote what Veda Vyasa dictated: the chats that became known as the Veda. To someone like me, who is used to Western traditions and literature, trying to take in the Mahabharata is a daunting task. But it’s fascinating, so I keep at it. I’m going to have to acquire some scholarly studies of the epic to help my understanding.* That will keep me busy for a while.

And as far as art goes, here's an illustration I did a few years ago as a private commission. I call it "Dragonflies." Water color on board, about 18" x 12". The border was drawn separately and added later in Photoshop.




* I'll happily accept recommendations.

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