Browsing through the computer some days ago, I found a photo of a lost painting which caused me a pang of regret. Many years ago, wanting its broken frame to be repaired, I took the painting to a framer in Mysore city’s Devaraja Market . After paying the shopman, I carelessly left the parcel by the door. By the time I remembered to go back a little later, it was gone without a trace.
The lost painting was a watercolour by my mother, Mukta, of sentimental value to me. Although she usually specialised in flower studies, this one was a landscape painted around 1942. We lived in one of the Railway bungalows on Krishnaraja Sagara Road adjacent to the residential area of Yadavagiri in Mysore which was called ‘Yadavagiri Extension’ in those days. There were fewer houses then but many plots that prospective homeowners, like my father, bought from the City Improvement Trust Board (CITB) of the Government to build their homes.
