Recently stumbled upon an artist, Arundhati Vartak. I'm no art critic, so I don't have the real words for what she does, so I will simply burble on about how beautiful her portraits are - of indian trees, flora, fauna. I began to google her work, and found a little of it (Kalpana Desai, Director, Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, describes Arundhati Vartak as "one of the few artists who combines in her works a perception of the miniaturist and the technique of a modern artist.") Here are some images from my google search. Yesterday I went to her studio and saw some of her work. The parijatak with a lowering slate sky at the back, the flowers fallen around, some a day old, some fresh, some just dropping off the tree. The neem, the thick majestic tamarind...and somewhere a bird, a cat, a goat...Felt privelged to also see a few sketches that Arundhati makes, of the particular way a stem looks, or a bird sits, or a flower droopw... which she then later refines to put into one of her paintings. it reminded me of a singer or player polishing up a little phrase to insert into his larger raga, or a writer scribbling three keywords to use later in her writing. i have a growing list of 'ratnas' that shine in this city...i add arundhati vartak to my list, with much pleasure. how i love artists and writers and musicians and runners and a hundred other real achievers, who aren't constantly 'out there' working the phones and seducing the networking sites. their reticence conserves their energy to create stunning work.