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Updated On: 05 July, 2024 06:03 AM IST | Mumbai | Rosalyn D`mello
My first time travelling with our toddler to places unknown to me was a pleasant and memorable exercise in giving up control or any sense of predetermination
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The grounds of the Museum Voorlinden at Wassenaar in the South Holland province of the Netherlands. Pic/Rosalyn D’Mello
On Wednesday evening, I returned from a five-day trip to the Netherlands, my first time in that part of the world. I was awestruck by the views as our flight began its descent and hovered around the coastline. Everywhere was sunlight glinting upon liquid surfaces. It was spectacular, to say the least. I was travelling alone with our child. I began to refer to this trip as a work-cation. I was visiting my artist friend Bhasha Chakrabarti who was invited to participate in a residency in Wassenaar, an affluent town extremely close to The Hague. She was collaborating with a musician from Sri Lanka, Hania Luthufi, who is currently in Europe, studying improvisation in Hamburg. They had been sharing the residency space since April and were working towards a publication and felt I could be the right person to address the tenor of their collaborative energy. I couldn’t disagree with their intuition. Female friendship is my forte, in many ways. I understand its mysteries and I can sense its aura from miles away.
Since the brief was to pick up on these notes through the act of living and inhabiting space with Bhasha and Hania, I thought it might be fruitful to take our child along. I was drawn to the idea of him being exposed to artists and of initiating him to the multifaceted nature of the work I do. I told him I had to go on a ‘study trip’ but that this time, he could come with me, as against previous occasions when I left him in the care of his father and grandparents. He’s at an age where he has a passionate love for vehicles and the idea of getting on multiple trains, buses and planes excites him. I took time off from my more regular freelance work so I could be more attentive and focussed and could distribute my time between our child and Bhasha and Hania, who were also colossally busy tying together so many loose ends. They had just finished with a Mehfil they had organised to showcase their artistic affinities and were preparing for the Open Studio which was scheduled for the day after I arrived.
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