My first Tanjore painting was made when I was five months pregnant. I had never attended a class. I had no formal training in this art form, no teacher walking me through the steps, no one to ask when something went wrong. What I had was an overwhelming fascination with this centuries-old art, a laptop full of open tabs, a stack of YouTube tutorials I had watched more times than I could count, and the particular kind of stubborn curiosity that makes you attempt things most people would consider slightly unreasonable. I attempted it anyway. And somewhere between the gold leaf and the chalk powder and the very specific ratios…