IN SEARCH OF THE ELUSIVE 01 (2016) Painting by Bodhi Selvam

IN SEARCH OF THE ELUSIVE

Written By : Lakshmi Venkatraman

The large pen and ink – black or blue - drawings with extremely intricate details take one’s breath away. They reveal weeks of untiring dedicated work. All those fine lines and patterns around a central circle or interwoven circles and triangles lead the eyes inevitably to a central figure in silhouette resembling the Buddha, which according to the artist Bodhiselvam is only symbolic, representing the focal point of the elusive something, a core essence of life, which one should aim at.

As a young boy Selvam was not interested in going to school. He preferred wandering around the wooded areas, the river, the lily ponds, the meadows near his village. He loved watching the sun rise and sunset, gazing at the sky, the moving clouds, feeling the breeze on his face, being in meditation as it were. After a failed second attempt by his mother to put him in school, with his father’s support he opted to take the cattle for grazing. He enjoyed being with the animals and his favorite pastime of being out in nature. It was some kind of an intangible calling, which he could not put his finger on.

During his teens he had a vision where he saw the Buddha and the beggar, who used to sit under a tree as if meditating, whose eyes seemed to bore through the young boy. This intrigued Selvam a lot and he began looking for answers. In 1994 he requested people to call him Bodhiselvam because it was the teaching of the Buddha which attracted him much. He wondered why people would not surrender themselves to the Supreme Being with a pure heart as advised by the Buddha. He realized that one should look within oneself to understand the reason for one’s existence.


Coming across spiritual books in a library, driven by a longing to learn about the philosophies in them, Selvam taught himself to read; ‘it was through meditation that I was able to learn to read’ says he. He read Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, but he did not leave out even Karl Marx. He travelled to Buddhist centers all over India such as Bodhgaya and meditated. He read Patanjali’s Yoga sutra many times and began to explore the energy Chakras in the human body and about raising the Kundalini. “Patanjali teaches us what Yoga really is, not the popular physical exercises we see now”, says Bodhiselvam. He even now takes groups for Yoga and Dhyanam to places without much human presence, where one can be one with Nature.

The current series of drawings are a continuation of the search for the ‘elusive something’. The aim of the perfectly symmetrical drawings with never ending fine details seem to lead to the small though most important central shadowy figure, as if it is the force controlling the universe; the center of energy spreading out in waves represented by the circles and other forms. In some there more than a single Buddha like figure set in the center of surrounding circles or triangles. Just as the viewer’s eyes move from one figure to the other trying to focus on the most important figure, one might take it that it is equal to the artist’s search too moving restlessly to focus on the elusive core, so that he might house it in his heart to meditate upon. As the artist himself seems to be searching for answers through his drawings, it would be best for anyone to just enjoy the visuals and not try to pinpoint the meaning of them.

Related themes

BuddhaZenOrangeLinesState Of Mind