I was good at a lot of things in life but there was this arty stuff at which I was a complete blockhead. Or so I thought! Until an artist friend told me, that all of us are born, with art, within us. For a few it gets nurtured in the right way, very early in life. For few others, we just have to wait for it to bloom at some point in our life…and then there are those few who will have to wait for another lifetime to experience this joy. It is all about how it is destined to be and that is what I earnestly believe.

I saw a glimpse of this belief when this artist’s work inspired me to write these two beautiful poems and the only ones so far. I could act, I could dance and I understood music. I could even play a few instruments. But poetry….never….I never imagined I could write and rhyme the way I did. Yes I really did. Came as a surprise to me indeed.

Somehow nothing has inspired me to write again until I watched this beautiful film – Mona Lisa’s smile.

I had always wondered what was so special about the smile ? What is so special about the painting?Even my good fortune of seeing the painting at the Louvre museum years back, did not change the fact that I understood nothing. I was too young to admit then, that I had perhaps wasted my precious time and money visiting this place.

Little did I know that someday I would reflect so much about that painting (or the memory of it in my mind!)

I don’t want to write a review on the film or the painting because I am no one to do this, but I am just going to write about the things I thought about after I watched the movie. My reflections on us -  the women race.

When I look around I see so many things that we represent.

When I think about it and look around at women from my generation and the younger lot of women, I wonder where the majority tilts to. Does it tilt to achievers in various fields that we women have conquered or does it tilt towards women being treated as sex objects with beauty without brain tags…? Who is responsible for this perception- whichever one you think is the majority?

There is a scene in the movie where the Mona Lisa painting  is drawn out of a folder and there is a dialogue about her smile -  and I wondered –

It is half a smile or maybe a quarter? Did she want to smile more heartily and was she asked not to? Is she truly happy from within? Is it a forced smile? Is she tired? Is she smiling because someone asked her to or wants her to? And did she really want to smile? Did she want to project a smile that was fake?And the last question which was in the movie – what difference did it make what was behind the smile?

A passing thought if one chooses, or a very deep reflection if one decides! 

At the end of it all we want to be proud of what we strived for in our own lives and want our daughters to be proud of what we taught them as a way of a beautiful life. Our fate – we decide!

Please watch the movie and let me know your thoughts. .