A COLLECTION OF WORKS BY
GEORGIA FERNANDES
2025

Today, I opened up the art collection for the public. A collection of birds. Kites, doves, peafowls. Sunbirds.

 

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For many, the Taj Mahal was their rock, their lighthouse that they would look for when they were lost. Walk three blocks down past the man selling sugarcane juice on the street, 5 rupees for one glass, and there was where I found my rock, my lighthouse. It was where I found me.

 

I never really knew how screwed the system was. There were men out who had assaulted seven women walking free, with a beer in hand, and then there is Eli, who at 65 never even walked to the sugarcane stand a minute from his house. 

 

I only know Eli's story through Rayas's eyes, but when I look into Eli's, I feel it. I see it. 

 

I can't imagine. What it must've been like for Eli to have to watch helplessly as men in khaki burst in while you are trying to understand the concept of Algebra, only to watch them slowly aim at the person who always protected you. 

​

The decision to decide that it was your turn to protect him now, to use your scrawny little 15-year-old body, barely growing a single chin hair, as a human shield, it seemed desperate but easy. He would have done anything for his brother- But I can't imagine what it was like to pull it. The trigger- and yet I could never bring myself to ask him, to put him through it all over again. 

 

You'd think that 54 years later, he would have been able to talk about it, yet not a single word ever came out of his mouth about it- but I know in his mind it replayed minute by minute.

 

Elis world was his mother, brother, Kai, and sister, Raya. 

 

Sometimes, his brother would go missing for weeks on end, and when he would come back, he would be covered in bruises, mostly on his upper arms, and at that point, I guess Eli never recognized the needle marks nor what they meant. Kai would come home, and week by week, the little gold his mother had would get less and less, and in turn, they would see him less and less. That's all I really knew about Kai. I knew Eli looked up to him- Kai was his hero.

 

Raya, on the other hand, I know her. 

I know she was five, too young to understand but old enough to remember. 

 

Remember the three men in black who barged into their small house on the corner holding Kai by the collar, demanding the money. 

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Remember how Eli pushed her under the table and crouched close to her to offer her some sort of comfort.

 

Remember how, as Kai was barely breathing with such tight grip on his neck, the men in khaki burst in, with sirens blaring, batons out, and guns drawn. 

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Remember how the man gradually slumped to the ground, how the puddle of blood grew slowly, turning everything in its path a dark crimson, the carpet they would puzzle on, the table they would cut their birthday cakes on, the floor they would dance on. Red. 

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Remember how tight Eli squeezed her hand and pulled her close to his chest, and for just a moment, even though the gunshots were drowned out, it was replaced with his heart, beating, pounding. Raya almost preferred the gunshots.

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Remember how Kai, barely breathing and unable to defend himself, sat in the corner across the room, and gazed at her- a final gaze; he looked scared. For the first time, Kai looked scared, not for what was going to happen to him, but for what would happen to her.

 

But most of all, she was old enough to remember how, as the men in black fell one by one. The last one left was Kai, and so when the officer drew out his gun at Kai, Raya watched as Eli, panicked, desperate, and frantic, in one last ploy to save his brother, locked his eyes on the pistol still in the hands of a lifeless man in black, and in one quick moment leaped for it and pointed it at the officer. All she did was shut her eyes as tight as she could, and when she opened them, it was all over. Kai was gone, and now so was Eli. Handcuffed and alone.

 

Eli and I. Our lives were so different but so similar. Both just reduced to victims of the system, but that must sound so cliche by now- everyone nowadays seems to be victims of some system. I just didn't hit a man in khaki in the leg and spend 54 years behind a jail cell or in a jail cell,  but I am almost there.

 

When I was 14, my father read me a quote from a book called War Talk, 

 

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it." 

 

Putting it down on paper almost made it feel real, but my father barely knew my name, forget take the time to read me anything. I don't think he could even read. When I was 14, I read myself a quote from a book called War Talk; I had read dozens of books from my parole officers collection while waiting for him to come and sit in front of me, all disappointed- but in a way that he's used to, that I'm used to. I was bored, and I knew his office well enough to know where he kept the keys, where he kept the books, where he kept his cigarettes, where he kept my file, and where he kept the lollipops. 

 

He'd come back in, and he'd be shocked. Not furious that I went through his stuff- he was used to me. But shocked- to see that I could read, that I would read- the same reaction as last time, and the time before. I was shocked too; why would he think I couldn't read, but also, why would he think I could- I was in the back of a cop car on a weekly basis; when the hell did I even have time to learn to read. But before all this, I went to school, I did well, I liked math, did my homework, played cricket, watched my father leave, watched my mother get on a train to work, and not come back. But I'm not that guy; I'm not the tragic guy, not the lonely guy. I'm Marcus, and I like to think I'm an artist. Well, spray paint on walls, alleys, and The Taj Mahal.

 

Eli was an artist, too. He painted birds. Kites, doves, peafowls. Never crows- Raya once told me one attacked him when he was 4, and he can't stand them. I don't know where he sees these birds; the city is too noisy or smoggy, but he finds them. He doesn't paint with a picture for reference. He just sits and paints. I don't know how he knows where each feather goes, but he does. 

 

The night I ran away from, I would say home; I wish I could say home, but it wasn't- it was my 9th foster 'home,' and I couldn't bear another day of sitting by the window, so I couldn't hear the 9s arguing. Mr. 9 claimed that I was a waste of space, but Mrs. 9 claimed the money was worth it. 

​

Mrs. 9 was a neat, hushed lady; she worked late, but even that late was too early for Mr. 9 to come back from the bar. When it was just the two of us in the house, she kept her distance, but it felt like I could call us friends, or maybe even acquaintances - I even thought of perhaps calling her by her real name Ruth. Mr. 9, on the other hand, didn't work- he had his father's property and fought his brothers and sisters for it, but that's not uncommon in India- families split up over land disputes. Thank God I didn't have any fields nor family, to fight for or with. Maybe my parole office was right; I am lucky. 

 

Mr. 9 spent his day eating and reading the paper, and then he went out drinking, and when he would come back- he would take out his anger on Mrs. 9, but for the 4 months I was there- me. I had become used to the punches, though I never fought back- I didn't feel the need to fight this sorry man. Imagine me feeling sorry for someone else.

 

The night I ran away, I ran to the Taj Mahal; no matter where I was, it was as if some part of me always knew how to get there. That night, I decided to follow the wise words of the book and mock the empire. I had paints, and I spent my weekly allowance from the state to buy the paints so I could 'express myself'; they supported it. Happy that I found something I enjoyed, just not when it was on walls, or houses, or cars, and apparently, this time- not the Taj Mahal. So, when the men in khaki showed up, I tried to explain to them the quote I had learned, but seemingly, they didn't get it. And once again, I sat in my parole officer's office, bored, reading more books. This time it felt different. I guess at this point, I knew him well enough to call him Neil. 

 

Neil looked at me the same way he had for years now, the look you have when you want to give up on someone, but you feel too sorry for them- so you don't. Instead, he brought in a woman, a woman with thick glasses, and grey hairs trying to poke out from the brown hair, a woman who looked at me, and it was as if she saw something more than the 'boy who had been through it all'; she saw me. Even though I had given up on myself, a long time ago- she saw something in me worth finding. Neil brought in Raya, and from that day, Raya took me in as her own. Who was absurd enough to bring home the boy, who was on the verge of going to jail- was it her job? Do all therapists do this for people? Was it even allowed?

 

Raya's house was small. It was a little flat, behind the Taj Mahal, three blocks down past the man selling sugarcane juice on the street, 5 rupees for one glass. It was on the second floor, and there was no lift, but walking up and down the stairs to her house, I felt like I was walking up to my own. Something I never knew how to do.

 

As weeks went by-I would spend alot of my time with Raya and Eli, even though I was now living with the 10s, they didn't really care where I went or what I did. So in a way Raya and Eli were my 11th house- my final house- but my first home. 

 

Raya painted her house light purple; the walls were covered with a wallpaper that had little birds on it. I wonder if Eli picked that. There were 2 bedrooms, one for her and one for Eli; there was a kitchen, that had a little couch by the side- where Raya and I used to talk during my sessions- which, at first, I thought would be a waste of my time. I was a 16-year-old boy; how could I have a therapist?

 

Everything in her house seemed meticulously placed. There were two walls that didn't have any wallpaper. One of them had a painting of a Sunbird, and the other had a small photo frame. I later learned that the sunbird, was the first bird Eli painted when he was released, and the frame is her favorite photo of herself, her mother, Kai, and Eli, on her first birthday- cutting her cake on the table, in the kitchen of their first house. 

 

It has been four years since I met Eli. Two years ago, while we were sitting- 'we' - I never really got the chance to say 'we' before; my whole life has been 'me' and 'I,' but me and Eli, I get to use the word 'we' now -Two years ago, we were sitting on the little rooftop over Raya's house, his favorite place. We were painting, him, birds, and me, I guess, just art- I don't know what else I'd call what I was doing. Eli never tried to teach me; he'd just let me watch him. The first day I met him, I really couldn't tell if he was mad that Raya made me sit out on the roof with him while she made us chai, and he was painting his birds. 

 

At first, I didn't know what to do; we both sat in silence, but I think in a way we both felt more comfortable that way. I tried to look at the streets, the vendors trying to sell their tomatoes, the man playing the flute, the kids skipping rope, but I felt drawn to watching Eli. He was quiet and didn't say much; he would squeeze little drops of paint on his palette, look up at his canvas, down at his pallet, slowly pull the paintbrush through, and back up onto the canvas. He would never move the brush up or left or right, just down; his strokes were singular and smooth. He never painted the backgrounds, just the birds. 

 

There were no birds around him, but as I got to know more about Eli, I learned that the birds he painted: the Kites, doves, and peafowls- were all found on the outskirts of Tihar, where the prison was. I don't know how Eli did it, how he remembered all the details of these birds, yet the three walls that surround the little rooftop are covered in his paintings, hundreds of them. 

 

My favorites were his purple sunbirds, and I remember I once told him that; and a few days later, I saw him grin for the first time, a large grin that spread from ear to ear, when he handed me a perfectly painted Purple Sunbird, on a canvas and at the bottom, he signed it 'With Love, Eli.'  I had never heard or had he word 'love' directed at me, and I never actually heard him ever say it, but on the bottom of that canvas it was the first time I felt it. I heard it.

 

To me, his collection of images was my world, and I knew that each bird had a story. I knew that Eli watched that bird as it perched, as it moved, as it ate, as it soared. I would stare at the birds and imagine what Eli must have been doing when he saw it, how he felt, what he thought. I wanted to feel it. 

 

I don't know why I found the quiet old man so fascinating. He had white hair, his eyes were brown- hazel when he painted while the sun was setting, but day by day, a white ring grew larger and larger around the brown, and the glasses became thicker and thicker. His face was smooth, and he never let a beard grow, not even stubble. He didn't talk much, but I knew he was fond of me, that made me happy, I was never the type of guy who wanted or needed people to like me, but to be able to think that Eli liked me, felt like all that mattered. 

 

After a few weeks of sitting and watching him, he began to whistle as he painted; although I never really knew what song he would whistle to, I knew it by heart; it was the same one every day. And one day he stopped whistling, he looked at me-

 

'Sunbird- that's what it sounds like' and he continued painting.

 

When Raya would have guests over, Eli would sit at the table, but he would never really talk. He would always make me sit next to him; I guess it gave him some sort of comfort. But when it was just me, Raya, and Eli, he would smile more, he would eat more of his food, and Raya didn't have to get mad, but as soon as she would go into the kitchen, Eli would slide his beans, carrots, and cucumbers into my plate but Raya never caught us. I think, in a way, Raya felt some sort of comfort having me around for dinners; she loves her brother, but when it's just them, she gets flashbacks, from when she was 5; she was too young to understand, too old to remember- but now she understands and remembers. 

 

In the nights when I would stand up to leave, back to the 10s, Eli would insist on showing me a new piece, and we would just stand and admire his painting until he was satisfied that I appreciated it.

And every time I'd see him, he would say- 

 

'How do you like it?'

"I love it." I'd say.

But sometimes, I'd know what bird it was. 

'How do you like it?'

"A Common Myna, an Indian Peafowl, a Laughing pigeon," I'd say, and Eli would grin, so wide that his cheeks wrinkled up like wrapping paper, and I could see his whole smile, even the missing tooth on the right. 

 

We would stand on the roof until it was too late that Raya would just set up the couch for me, and Eli would feel accomplished. 

 

One night in June a year ago, during the monsoons, I drove Eli and Raya back from his doctor's appointment. I had just gotten my driving license. On the drive there, Eli sat in the front seat- he seemed calm and excited- he seemed confident- he would tap his fingers on his lap in a rhythm, which made me feel at ease- 

 

Three taps, then a gap. Three taps, then a gap. 

 

When I would break a little hard, he'd skip a tap or add a tap, but he'd never let me know that he indeed got a little nervous about my new skill. Raya in the back was a little hesitant; she held the handle on the top, as if her life depended on it, but she seemed pleased to see that her faith in me to drive was worth it. She paid for the lessons, and in return, I offered to drive her and Eli wherever they needed to go, whenever they needed to go. Eli never left the house except for these visits, and so I mostly drove Raya around. 

 

But this time, on the way back, the car ride was silent; Eli didn't tap, and Raya didn't even hold the handle. I figured it wasn't good, but I never asked. The rain replaced Eli's taps, but more angered taps, faster and no rhythm. At home, Raya smiled at me and went straight to her room. Eli went straight to the rooftop. He seemed concerned, but at this point, I knew him well enough to know he wasn't concerned about himself or what was said in that room; he was concerned about his paintings. In the car, he heard the radio say that this was one of the worst monsoon seasons Agra had ever faced, and he was worried his paintings would be in the destruction path. 

 

The paintings were fine, but the easel with his newest sunbird was ruined. He stared at it, and I moved it further from the opening. He pulled my little stool close to his. It was late, and I needed to leave if I wanted to get home before the rains got worse, but I knew I needed to stay. I sat next to him, in my place, and watched him wipe the canvas with a white cloth and begin squeezing little drops of paint on his palette, this time he struggled, so he handed it over to me without a word, without a look- and this time I squeezed the little drops of paint while he watched. Even though the rain was beating down and thunder was crackling, it was silence; I could hear him breathing and the I could hear the paintbrush moving against the canvas, never up or left or right, just down, but this time, the lines weren't smooth- his hand trembled too much. 

 

The sunbird was one of his last. I loved his whole collection, but the last few were my favorite; they weren't smooth, they had more ragged edges, they were more abstract, but I knew that they took more effort- they took him longer, he would go over each line again and again, and he would concentrate more on making sure he got the colors right.

The sunbird was my favorite, he waited until he painted the last few feathers, and then he went, but still when he finally finished it, he said

"How do you like it?"

"I love it, Eli." I said.

 

And he smiled.

 

It has been four years since I met Eli, and one since he died. I heard his whistle again, I turned and saw the sunbird. Today, I opened up the art collection for the public. A collection of birds. Kites, doves, peafowls. Sunbirds. A collection signed off 'With Love, Eli.