Illustration Friday: Tales & Legends + The Found Hearts...

(click on image for a closer look)

Text sourced from here.

For this week of tales and legends, I bring to you the mythological tale of the Princess Savitri, who's extraordinary love, devotion and wit helped her win her husband Satyavan back from Yama, the God of Death (taken from one of the great Indian epics, the Mahabaratha).

:D

To read the whole story, follow the links given below:

For the original Sanskrit text, followed by the English translation go here (It's where the text above is sourced from).

To read Aaron Shepherd's retelling of the story for his picture book 'Savitri - A Tale of Ancient India', go here. ( The entire picturebook complete with doublespread illustrations can also be found on the same page under the link 'picturebook'. The illustrations are very charming and worth checking out even though I must admit I have major issues with the costume/appearance of certain characters! ).

Wikipedia link here.

I'm so glad this is finally up! The minute I read last Friday that this week's topic was 'Tales & Legends', I was sure I wanted to do one from India. After all, it has'nt been called the Land of stories for nothing! :)

Saturday and Sunday were spent reading/looking for an appropriate story. Which means lot's of searching on the internet and trying to remember stories I've heard as a kid. The number of stories/mythological tales I've read for this topic! Some I remembered from childhood, some I read for the first time and some I learnt more about.

Finally I settled on the story of Savitri & Satyavan and began to draw late Monday. Was still working on it on Tuesday when I got a freelance illustration project, due Wednesday! Met deadline and resumed working on the Savitri story illustration late Wednesday. Completed the illustration about an hour or so ago today (Thurday). And it is a big deal cos' whenever I've not been actually drawing/colouring this illustration this past week, I've been thinking I should be drawing/colouring it so I could finish and post it before Friday!!

And so I have! Phew!

Ok. End of raving.

On a different note, I have another more personal story to share as well.

Yesterday I was out walking my dog. I walk my dog everyday in the evening and as is the norm (for me) on such walks, as I was walking I was also thinking about my list of things to do, generally letting my mind wander etc. when totally out of the blue I was thinking of Kelly Rae's blog. And more specifically about the pictures of heart's that she finds in various locations and documents on her blog.

The weirdest part was I wasn't thinking about anything related to blogs or hearts or even remotely connected to Kelly when I remembered this.

Once I'd got the thought in my head though, I started wondering if that were possible, or rather how impossible it seemed to find a heart in a natural setting more than once, over and over - in fact almost one after another. It seemed downright impossible.

I'm still wondering how she finds them when I also start wondering whether I would find one if I looked. One part of me immediately scoff's at the very notion of going around looking for anyhting remotely 'heart-shaped' in my immediate surrounding, but another more curious part of me immediately starts looking around.

And within the next 5 secs, my eyes fell on this,


Do you see it? Do you?! The little white heart?

The minute I saw it I dismissed the possibility. I mean, it could'nt be a heart. I was probably just seeing things. I had'nt even been looking seriously! But the next minute I picked it up and carried it all the way home. I hav'nt felt that excited in a long while.

Wait. There's more.

Today evening I took Leo out for a walk again. As usual. But today I was in a hurry to get back home so we were almost halfway through our usual route around the neighbourhood before I remembered the stone heart.

Could I possibly find one today? Part of me knew the probability of finding one was next to nil. But once I'd remembered it I could'nt help but keep an eye out for it. I almost dared myself to find one, but at the same time fully expected to not find anyhting.

Am I making sense? :D

We were about 5 mins away from home when I gave up. I was htnking to myself, things just don't work that way.

And then I saw it.

And I'd picked it up well before I realized what it was.

:D

What does it mean I wonder? Just serendipity or beginner's luck? A message fromm the universe on the lines of 'She who looketh, findeth'? Nothing is imposiible?

Lol!

All I know is that it's been fun and exciting to find them and I felt like sharing! I'm going to keep looking whenever I go out now and even though the probability of finding one three days in a row is pretty dim, who knows really?

:D

A huge thanks to Kelly Rae for the inspiration!

Cheers,
Radha

Update: I was in such a hurry to post this that the link to this page from Illo Fri reads 'Ratlionra'! And quite appropriately, Savitri from the thumbnail appears to be looking at the typo in dismay! :D