ART IS BORN OUT OF FRUSTRATION, & SHAPED BY THE GEOGRAPHY

This image reveals how the artist, overwhelmed by the cruelty, judgment, noise, and emotional chaos of fellow humans, uses his creativity as a desperate escape from psychological suffocation. Instead of confronting the pain directly or healing it, he channels it into exaggerated beauty and fantasy, creating a parallel world that offers temporary relief but no resolution. The people around him represent society's constant intrusion, blame, and emotional violence, while his intense focus on art exposes a deep disconnection — not from skill or imagination, but from raw human presence and acceptance. It questions whether art that originates from avoidance can ever offer true peace.

PART I: THE WOUND THAT BIRTHED ART

Art is not born from peace.

It is not born from joy.

It is born from irritation — the unbearable tension between what should be and what is.

And often, the deepest source of this tension is other people.

Humans frustrate each other in ways no other species can.

Through lies, noise, betrayal, gossip, denial, comparison, control, expectations, and pride.

They don't just hurt — they corrupt your inner reality.

A child begins to draw not because they want to impress, but because they want to escape.

They want to scream without shouting.

They want to say something no one will interrupt.

They want a space where no one corrects them.

The dancer is often a silent sufferer — using movement to override meaning.

The poet is a failed conversationalist.

The painter has seen ugliness in life that must be layered with color to remain bearable.

Art is not a hobby.

It is an exit door.

It is the only language where pain is not denied or diluted.

It is a method of rearranging chaos so it doesn’t destroy you from the inside.

It is the only place left where you can still be the god of your world.

---

PART II: THE MAP THAT MOULDED THE MIRROR

But if pain births art, it is place that shapes it.

A tribal mask from Arunachal cannot be born in Tamil Nadu.

A Rajasthani miniature cannot emerge from Kerala’s rains.

A Russian ballet cannot grow in the Kenyan savannah.

Not because of race or religion. But because of land, weather, food, movement, sound.

Geography is not just backdrop — it is the real parent of art.

The colors of the desert are muted because sun burns everything.

The tempo of rain-forest music is fast because the bugs never stop.

The architecture of temples differs because granite is in one place and clay in another.

The poetry of a mountain village whispers, while a coastal town shouts in salt and storm.

Art adjusts to what is abundant, what is scarce, and what is allowed.

In dry regions, dance uses dust.

In humid regions, it uses the body’s fluidity.

In cold places, art protects.

In hot places, it ventilates.

In dangerous places, art hides meaning.

In free places, art celebrates itself.

This is why art never belongs to the artist alone.

It belongs to the soil, the wind, the season, the tools, and the frustrations of a people trying to stay sane together.

---

CLOSING THOUGHT

So yes —

Art is born from the frustration of living with humans.

But it is sculpted, flavored, and disciplined by the land under your feet.

Pain gives it a reason.

But place gives it a shape.

No artist can run from either.

—

Here is a long, deep, healing dialogue between a frustrated artist and a hermit named Madhukar. The artist has always used art as an escape from human pain. But now he’s tired — tired of needing to escape. The conversation takes place in Madhukar’s mud home, surrounded by trees, silence, and no spectators.

---

CHARACTERS

Anay (38): A well-known Indian visual artist. Grew up lonely, betrayed by family, used art to stay sane. Now deeply burned out and wondering if he ever truly healed anything through art.

Madhukar (60s): Former scientist turned hermit-healer. Lives simply, listens deeply, never gives advice unless asked thrice.

---

SETTING

A cracked terracotta bench beneath a mango tree. A cow lazily chews beside them. There’s no fan, no canvas, no pen. Just two men, one searching, one resting.

---

THE DIALOGUE

Anay:

I don’t want to create anymore.

Every time I paint, I feel like I’m just vomiting pain.

It doesn’t heal me. It just delays the collapse.

Madhukar (quietly):

Then maybe the collapse is the healing.

Anay:

But I’ve built my whole identity on being an artist.

People call me “brilliant.” I have awards, exhibitions, followers.

But none of that fills the hole that made me start painting.

I’m just polishing my wound every day.

Madhukar:

A bandage is not a cure.

And fame is just the applause of strangers who didn’t stay when you cried.

Anay (nods):

You know, when I was a child, I used to draw so I wouldn’t scream.

My parents never listened. My friends disappeared.

Art was the only place where I didn’t have to explain myself.

Madhukar:

And now?

Anay:

Now I explain myself to critics, collectors, curators, clients.

And I hate them all.

But I hate myself more… because I still need their approval.

It’s not art anymore. It’s a job. A prison.

But without it, I’m nothing.

Madhukar:

Who told you that?

Anay (whispers):

Everyone. And me.

Madhukar:

Then let’s ask a different question.

What would remain if you were never allowed to create again?

Anay:

(pause)

I don’t know. I’m scared to find out.

Madhukar:

That fear… that’s the child who never got held.

Not the artist. The artist was just his mask.

Can you sit with the child — without painting him?

Anay:

I’ve never done that.

If I don’t draw him, he screams.

Madhukar:

Let him scream.

Let the scream pass through you.

Not out of your hand onto a canvas…

But through your chest. Through your lungs.

Until you stop being afraid of what you feel.

Anay:

You want me to give up art?

Madhukar:

I want you to give up using art as a cage with golden paint.

Art is not the problem.

The need for it to survive — that’s the trap.

Can you breathe without painting? Can you cry without sculpting it into beauty?

Anay:

I don’t know.

But I’m tired of beauty.

I want peace.

Madhukar:

Then stop trying to be seen.

Be invisible. Live unrecorded.

Plant something. Sweep a floor. Walk a path no one photographs.

Let the hand that once held the brush… just hold a leaf.

And don’t turn it into a symbol. Just let it be a leaf.

Anay:

But what if nothing comes from it?

Madhukar:

Everything will come.

Peace comes. Silence comes.

And when art no longer needs to come…

Maybe, truly, it will.

---

ENDING SCENE

Later that evening, Anay sits silently in the mud courtyard.

A child from the village brings him a mango.

He eats it with both hands.

Sticky fingers, uncomposed posture, no camera.

For the first time in years, he doesn’t feel the urge to draw the moment.

He just lives it.

—

Here is the follow-up healing dialogue set six months later. Anay returns to visit Madhukar — this time not as a lost artist, but as someone who has quietly stepped out of the addiction to self-expression.

---

SETTING

Same mud home. Same mango tree. But this time, Anay arrives barefoot, in plain clothes. He carries no bag, no sketchbook, no camera. He has a gentle suntan, slight muscle tone from manual work, and a calmer breath.

---

THE DIALOGUE: “SIX MONTHS WITHOUT ART”

Madhukar:

You look like a man who finally stopped fighting his shadow.

Anay (smiling):

Or maybe I stopped trying to make the shadow into a painting.

Madhukar:

Tell me.

Anay:

For the first few weeks, I kept seeing “frames” in everything.

I’d see a broken pot and my mind would compose a shot.

I'd hear a crying child and imagine how I'd paint the mood.

It was automatic. Addictive.

Madhukar:

Withdrawals?

Anay:

Yes.

Not from creating.

From the identity of being “someone who creates.”

I didn’t know how much I used art to avoid myself.

Madhukar:

And now?

Anay:

I wake up with the sun.

I help build homes with cow dung and lime.

I talk less. Listen more.

I plant trees, cook with women, carry dung, sleep early.

I feel things I never felt when I was busy capturing beauty.

Madhukar:

What happened to the hole inside?

Anay:

It’s still there.

But I no longer decorate it.

I sweep it daily.

Let the wind pass through.

Some days it echoes. Some days it sings.

But I don’t fear it anymore.

Madhukar:

Do you miss art?

Anay:

No.

And that surprises me.

Because earlier, I thought if I didn’t create, I would die.

But now I feel…

Maybe I created because I never really lived.

Madhukar:

So what will you do if the urge returns?

Anay (gently):

Maybe I’ll let it pass like rain.

Or maybe I’ll draw something on mud… and let it fade.

No gallery. No likes.

No ownership.

Madhukar:

Then the art will be real.

When it has no purpose but presence.

Anay (pausing):

You know what changed me the most?

Madhukar:

Hmm?

Anay:

The first time I sat beside someone who was in pain…

and didn’t feel the urge to document it.

Just sat. Just felt. Just held.

Madhukar (smiling):

Then your hands have finally become useful.

---

ENDING SCENE

As they sip herbal water in silence, a village child comes and hands Anay a tiny clay toy he made.

Anay smiles, holds it, and says nothing.

He doesn’t think of how to improve it, doesn’t turn it into metaphor, doesn’t post about it.

He just places it near the tulsi plant and walks away.

—

Here is the final dialogue, set ten years later — the completion of Anay’s healing arc.

---

TITLE: WHEN YOU NO LONGER NEED ART, IT FINALLY BECOMES TRUE

---

SETTING

Anay now lives in a small hut near a tribal village in southern India. He teaches local children how to build, sing, and live with nature — but never calls himself a teacher. He grows his food, cooks on firewood, and hosts travelers only when they’re truly lost.

One monsoon morning, Madhukar visits him. His hair is fully white now. They sit under a palm-thatch shelter while rain falls hard around them.

---

THE DIALOGUE: “THE RETURN OF ART”

Madhukar:

Ten years ago, you came to me choking on your own creativity.

Anay (laughs):

Yes. It was like drowning in my own paint.

Madhukar:

And now?

Anay:

Now I make art again.

But it’s not mine anymore.

Madhukar:

Explain.

Anay:

I paint with mud, leaves, ash, berries — whatever’s around.

I don’t keep anything. The wind takes it. The goats eat it.

Sometimes I sculpt, but only to teach children balance.

Sometimes I sing, but only to calm a crying child.

I write poetry on stones and throw them into rivers.

I do not sign. I do not claim.

Art has become what it should have always been — a gesture, not a performance.

Madhukar:

And the old pain?

Anay:

It’s still there.

But now, it’s just compost.

Not the seed, not the soil — just good compost.

And from that, joy grows.

The kind of joy that doesn’t need to be shown to anyone.

Madhukar:

So now you don’t escape from humans through art?

Anay:

No.

Now I stay.

When someone is cruel, I stay.

When someone misunderstands, I stay.

When someone loves, I stay.

I no longer need art to replace human connection.

Because I’ve stopped expecting humans to be godlike.

I allow them to be broken — and still stay.

Madhukar:

Then the artist is gone.

Anay:

Yes. And what remains is the human.

Who sometimes creates.

But never escapes.

---

ENDING SCENE

That evening, a tribal girl draws patterns on Anay’s hut with rice paste. He joins her.

Neither of them talks.

They complete the pattern and leave.

The rain washes it away by morning.

Neither of them minds.

—