Ashesh's feet are nailed to the ground. It is difficult to tell how long he has stood there. One hour? Could be two. In that time, however long it is, he has grown uneasier by the minute. He is fed up of this canvas. Mildly angry even. He wants to opt out of this torture. Who the hell is going to force him to bear it? He's his own master. He is free to decide what he wants to paint. He wants to pick up his brush, paint over these demonic triangles and start afresh.

Ashesh picks up a brush and frowns at his colour tubes. In despair, he throws himself into his chair. Which colour has the power to obliterate black? And what if that elusive image presents itself again one day?

No. Take the canvas off the easel and put another one up. Another canvas, another painting.

He gets up. He lifts the canvas off the easel, stops, puts it back again. He is truly angry. He picks up a tube of black, mixes it with white, dips his brush into the grey and lets his brush decide where it wants to go. The brush paints a vaguely round shape. It becomes a painter. Ashesh doesn’t interfere. The brush marks the round shape to bring a face into being. A floating head. The eyes stare white out of smudged sockets. Below them the mouth is split open.

Ashesh watches the face emerge. He has seen this face before. Not specifically this one, but many like it. He mixes more black and white for more shades of grey, paints faces next to the first, till they crowd each other. The area between the black diagonals fills with faces, leaving no space to breathe. They are similar and yet different, unlike Mardhekar's ‘I am an ant, he is an ant.’ These faces are not ants. They are vividly human, each face unique with its own story. He thinks of Auschwitz. And he thinks of chained human bodies, before Auschwitz, transported in crowded holds of ships, to be enslaved on foreign shores. The canvas grows heavy with faces.

Ashesh washes his brushes, wipes them and puts them away in their mug. He stands still for a few moments and then walks stiffly to his chair like a wound-up toy. His mind is free of thought. His heart is free of emotion. His body is free of movement. It is nicely tired. His eyes close.