15 years ago, on an auspicious festive day, I randomly visited a Hanuman Temple in Coimbatore. Back then, I was a spiritual seeker, not a religious follower.
In those days, I used to draw a lot of mythological paintings, studying deeply about character backstories. As a storyteller, religions felt like mythological fantasy to me, a medium of storytelling.
With that context, I started conversing with the deity and said, "Oh Hanuman, I have a long-time doubt. I know your mouth deformed, when you gulped the sun in your childhood, that is a beautiful character design justification. But what about the complete Vanaras, the Monkey Kingdom? Maybe I should ask the author who wrote these stories, not you." I completed my conversation, realizing I was speaking to a stone.
I went back home and slept. After five hours, a few old friends came and disrupted my sleep. After they left, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to paint for the day. I picked a random book from the library, Shikandi, written by Devdutt Pattanaik, and opened a random page. And that page talked about the female form of Aruna, the charioteer of the Sun God, and the origin of the monkey kingdom, Vanaras.
✨After that, what happened in my life is Fantasy.✨
Do you think it is a Divine Encounter or Accidental Serendipity?
— SCD Balaji
