‘Ahah! That’s clever. There’s nobody in the spiritual slot right now.’

‘She’s sponsoring his show.’

‘He’ll go far. Remember Feroze was urging him to look into himself? But he did better. He looked around himself. Good for him.’

26

Haridas drops in unexpectedly. He sits for a long time without saying a word. Haridas has always had first right on opening conversations between them. Ashesh has rarely appropriated that right. Since Haridas is silent, so is Ashesh.

At last Haridas says in a low voice, ‘You’re still with black, are you?’

Ashesh says, ‘Yes’, knowing full well that is not what Haridas has come to ask him.

‘Show me. I’ll look. You make coffee.’

Ashesh turns his latest work around for him and goes to the kitchen. Haridas looks at the painting. When Ashesh returns, he is sitting down. Ashesh pulls a peg table forward and places two mugs of coffee on it.

‘There’s nothing more left for you to say in black. You’ve done death, you’ve done the individual and you’ve done the power of the state. What else?’ Haridas’s voice is transparently concerned.

Ashesh looks at Haridas, startled. Are his black and grey works about those things?

‘I’m not sure I’m out of black yet,’ he murmurs tentatively. ‘Or maybe I am.’ Again Haridas is silent. Then he bursts out, ‘I find the idea of the finality of black unacceptable. As Feroze says, black is alive with countless shades. I was looking at Girji’s painting. She plastered the wall with red earth. In the rust red were hidden not only all imaginable shades of ochre but, if you looked deep enough, even a hint of purple.’

He looks at Ashesh with ravaged eyes. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you,’ he says and falls into silence again.

‘What?’

‘Girji and Marli went home for a wedding. They haven’t returned.’ There is a silence.

‘They’ll come,’ Ashesh says at last. ‘They don’t keep to days and dates. You know that.’

‘But they went home only recently for the Mahalakshmi fair. Why should Soma fetch them away again? He muttered something about a wedding. But the wedding season’s nearly over.’

‘They’ll come, don’t worry.’ Ashesh doesn’t sound convincing even to himself. ‘Do you want me to call Bachchu Kaka?’

‘How the laburnums have bloomed. I came that way just to see the trees. Some of the trees in Girji’s painting look like laburnums, with clusters of leaves instead of flowers hanging from the branches.’

Haridas sits still. ‘Let’s wait for a couple of days, then . . . yes, please ask Bachchu Kaka.’

The doorbell rings. ‘That must be Janaki.’

Haridas’s face changes. Mischief replaces cloud. ‘Good news?’

‘She wants to interview me.’

‘That’s even better news. I’ll be off. I’m sure you won’t press me to stay.’