The Conversation

I met him in the National Gallery of Modern Art. He caught my eye when he walked in, but I paid no heed to him any further. We moved from one painting to another together sometimes by his design sometimes by mine. It was after 4 paintings that one of us mustered up the courage to initiate a conversation. Needless to say it was him; it was one of the worst conversation openers of all time. “Are you an artist as well?” It was both presumptive and at the same time boastful. However, I let it slide. Or maybe I didn’t realize so that time.  From there on it was one thing to another, we talked for hours. We talked about our family but not where were we from. We talked about paintings and what it reminded us of. He went to full mansplaining mode about art. But, can it actually be termed that if that is his specialization. I think it was another thing which I let slide. But the way he did that was not condescending at all. He was just so passionate when he talked about the artists he liked, the styles he adopted the paintings he had seen. Pure happiness emanated from him when he was trying to explain to the type of technique used by the artist there. I could tell some of them were just to impress me but there were times I saw him realize and observe something and gasp like a child. It were these moments that I loved the most. Art is a brilliant conversation starter. A painting of a night time scene lead me to City of Lights which lead to La La Land and which lead us to discuss our favorite movies just standing there for 15 minute. We talked about our political ideologies and leanings and being a true artist he was had an extremist point of view but it was not right wing, so I was fine with it.  With each painting we would reveal one aspect of our personality to another. I think I know him better than I know some people with whom I have been living for the past 3 years and he likewise. I think we touched about everything except our names. I thought it would be too awkward to ask that after knowing how his mother passed away. And I liked the way things were going. I loved the mystery and I was doing something I never do, I was living in the moment without thinking of the past or the future. I think it was that that lead me to completely forget how late I was and rush out of there like Cinderella. It was full blown Cinderella I tell you with me giving me a wrong number and everything. Only difference I didn’t leave behind a glass shoe. It was so Cinderella that I even rushed out of his hug and he was the only person I ever wanted to hug even after knowing that he had been through a 14 hour long  bus journey and not taken a bath for the entire day. I just wanted to hug him tight and tell him that everything would be alright. His dad was just hurting; he would start talking to him again. I wanted to tell him that his paintings were not shallow and one sided and for whatever it was worth I thought they were beautiful. I wanted to tell him don’t worry you would make it through all of this.  However, I can’t figure out why I didn’t I think it was the fact that he was stranger(or was he) and stranger danger. Or maybe there was that guard staring at us or maybe it was my inherent fear that I would get bored of him and he would realize that I was the shallow one and then these beautiful 2 hours which we spent together would lose its meaning as well.