Initially, nobody responds. They watch each other awkwardly to figure out what they are supposed to do with the paddles that have been thrust into their hands. A hesitant paddle goes up somewhere. ‘A lakh and a half! Do I hear two? Who says two?’ Another paddle goes up. ‘Two, two, two . . . I have two lakhs. Do I hear two and a half?’

The race is getting exciting. The quality of the paintings is no longer important. What is important is to show you have two lakh rupees to squander against your neighbour’s one and a half. If your neighbour has two, you have three and a half. Sharmila eggs the audience on with reminders about the great cause to which their money will go. Finally Earth goes first, for three lakh, followed by the other primary elements for three and a half, three and a half, and four lakh.

The auction will give Prakash the stamp of saleability. No matter what the critics say about his work, he will have this fourteen lakh made in an evening to vouch for its quality. It will not be long before Prakash has his own flat and car.

34

Janaki gazes intently at the canvas. It is still on the easel, set up at an angle near the door to catch the cross light. Under that light Ashesh’s play with textures comes alive.

The woman in the painting is, and is not, Janaki. The viewer who does not know that Namdeo’s milkmaid is one of the inspirations behind it will not see a milkmaid there. Nor, for that matter, Pu Shi Rege’s ‘Pushkallaa’. It is perhaps to Janaki’s disadvantage that she knows the genesis of the work. She would like to see it without that knowledge, but knowledge cannot be thrown out at will. Under the circumstances, she must try her best to look at the work objectively.

The work shows the bust of a woman, her head turned to look at the artist. The face is neutral. One hand, ornamented with a thick, smooth bracelet, rests easily on the cheek. The hair is coiled on top of her head. The contours of the figure are made with myriad little marks in grey. This softens the edges, allowing the substantiality of the face to merge with the background in a fluid relationship. The background is painted in shades of grey that flow into each other cloudily with thin slivers of black with hints of blue showing through. The whole is bathed in a mellow light that appears to come from a hidden moon.

Janaki finds herself drowning, resurfacing and drowning again in its greys and blacks. Ashesh watches her nervously, trying to gauge her response. She feels a strong urge to touch the tactile surface of the painting. ‘May I touch it?’ she asks.

He smiles. ‘Sure, but lightly.’

‘It’s erotic.’

‘That’s the effect I wanted. You think I’ve succeeded?’