He is woken up by the loud paw paw of a truck's bulb horn. His eyes open reluctantly and he pushes himself up into the real world. The horn blares again. He ambles on to the veranda, surprised that a truck should be parked there. He sees no truck, but the horn goes off again. His ears tell him it is blowing outside his door. What nonsense! He hurries to the door. Haridas stands there holding a colourful object with a bulb horn attached. He brings the object close to Ashesh's face and blows it.

‘Stop being childish,’ Ashesh yells. Haridas follows him into the house blowing the horn. He looks at the object in his hand dramatically. ‘Childish? You misguided soul. This is a piece of art. The work I did at the art camp.’ Haridas dances the object above his head in triumph. ‘This is what I did in Goa. In between fish and feni. What did you do?’ He throws a sarcastic look at the canvas. ‘Fought with the Kaliya serpent some more.’

Ashesh smiles drily at Haridas's high spirits.

‘Thinking and more thinking has constipated you. You must include fibre in your diet. That's your problem. Look at me. It comes out naturally. You paint and you’re relieved. But I’m just a brush man. You are the thinking artist, man.’ Haridas blows the horn again. Ashesh takes the object from his hand and is surprised at its lightness.

‘You thought it was wood, hunh? Fibreglass.’ Assuming the tone of an adult explaining a simple thing to a child he adds, ‘People have stopped painting in the outside world, see? This is today's medium.’

The object is a more or less rectangular piece painted parrot green. In the centre is the horn—bright pink, not rubber as it appears to be, but some light plastic material. Around it is a border of creepers and flowers. At the bottom of the frame, inscribed in bold purple letters are the words: OK. HORN PLEASE. MOTHER–FATHER’S BLESSINGS. A thick, gold-painted chain is hooked to the top of the frame for hanging. It is a brash object but so perfectly crafted that Ashesh can’t take his eyes off it.

‘You want it outside your door?’

Ashesh declines the offer with a smile and a shake of his head.

‘It's your big chance for some publicity. The Mumbai Observer wants to interview me about the Goa camp. They’ll ask what I did there. I’ll say, “You want to see what I did? Go to Ashesh Joshi's house.” A photo in the papers will follow. Think.’

‘So you’ve managed to get to that new paper?’

‘Excuse me. They have got to me. They’ve hired a female titbit to “cover” culture. Her half page is called “Kulture Khichdi”.’

‘Does that mean you’ll be at the top and a recipe for khaman dhokla below?’