Ashesh sees Yogesh flat on the bathroom floor. The cut on his wrist is as fine as a filament. The blood from it has coagulated on the floor. By the time Ashesh reached Yogesh’s uncle’s house, it had turned black. But some red still gleamed through. By the time the police arrived that too had darkened. The blood that had flowed through Yogesh’s veins, singing of life, was now a dark dirge on his death. Ashesh had stood beside this body the previous evening, erect and alive then with red blood. He had sat before this body that had leaned urgently towards him. He had drunk tea made by these hands.

It was a day in April, quite like today. Ashesh had parked his Padmini at the south end of the park in a by-lane. He was going to take a brisk walk to Yogesh’s uncle’s house on the other side, to compensate for the walk he had not taken that morning. Stepping out of the car, he had felt the stored heat of the asphalt shooting into the soles of his feet. But once he started walking, the sea breeze had played around his face, picking up beads of sweat from his forehead like a soft brush lifting paint.

As he walked towards the park he was thinking about Yogesh—the quiet-faced youth he had first met in art school when Yogesh had been a freshman. Much later, he had heard his work spoken of with excitement. Ashesh had gone to the Jehangir Art Gallery to see his first solo show. There were some fifteen to twenty paintings there, big and small. They were complex works, done in layers, without their meaning being overtly peddled. You had to look long and hard to comprehend what the colours, lines and imagery were doing. Ashesh, who had kept his relationship with brush and paint alive through the changing times, had been intrigued by Yogesh’s use of computerized and photographic material to create those layers. In one or two works, the negative space was covered in a shower of short white lines suggesting it had been captured directly off a television screen.

One work was covered entirely with blow-ups of body parts tagged by text in elaborate lettering reading ‘The nostril’ or ‘The inner ear’. Ashesh was fascinated by the work. He had seen Yogesh sitting at a table in the corner with two friends—a young man and a woman. Ashesh had stopped by to say a few words before leaving. As he approached the table, Yogesh had half risen with nervous anticipation. Ashesh had placed a light hand on his shoulder to reassure him. ‘It’s an enigmatic show,’ he had said. ‘Some of those pictures might haunt me.’

Yogesh’s face had brimmed with joy. ‘Thank you, sir, thank you.’

‘I’d like to see you some time. Talk about your technique.’