Recently I have read two interesting books with very different theme yet there is a commonality between both of them which I want to share.
First book is "My Name is Red" by Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. What I like about his style of writing is that, each chapter of his book starts with a view point of one of the characters. These characters could be a minor actor in story, could be a dog, or even an inanimate thing like gold coin. The central theme of this book is about Master Miniaturists who have can draw and paint even in dark. This they do by memory. These artists would have drawn horses thousands of times, so that they no more need to look at what they are drawing.
Second book is "Nine Lives" by William Dalrymple. In this book, he shares nine stories of different places and people. One of those chapter is about Bhopas of Rajasthan. They are folk musicians and story tellers. Bhopas recite their stories over the course of several nights. They do it in the presence of sacred "Phad", which is a canvas painting of local deity "Pabuji". Remarkable thing about their performance is that they recite such long epics by memory. So far knowledge has been transferred orally in the family from father to son.
Thus you can clearly see that two different art forms united by lots of practice and relied upon by memory.
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