Everything about Vikram Shah and his seminar smacks of charlatanism, but the speakers have come, persuaded, in no small measure, by the trimmings around Shah's invitation. Shah has offered them a handsome fee in addition to providing air-conditioned transport to the venue and back. He has also organized cocktails at a five-star hotel near the airport for the speakers, artists and collectors. What has drawn artists, critics and the press to the seminar is the promise that something spicier than the usual mealy-mouthed discussions on dead-horse issues is likely to happen.

Anima has reserved two seats beside her for Janaki and Ashesh. Janaki will come directly from work and he, when he can. Anima is astonished at the crowd. The faces around her belong not just outside the usual suspects of the art world, but far beyond its farthest extensions. When Janaki takes her seat beside Anima, she asks with a lopsided grin, ‘Are we at the right place?’ The answer comes from behind. ‘The Shosha seminar? Yes, this is it.’

Anima and Janaki turn around. Anima sees an unfamiliar young man with bright, lustrous eyes. Janaki sees a faintly familiar face.

‘Janaki?’ the young man says eagerly. ‘Don’t you recognize me? Prakash. Jadhav. I used to come to Kolhapur in the summer holidays. To my grandfather's. Hambirrao's.’

Janaki does remember. Her face lights up. ‘What brings you here?’

He answers in his Belgaum lilt, ‘I went to art school here. Remember I used to draw? I knew since then that I wanted to . . .’ He is eager to tell her all. Janaki takes fright. This is neither the place nor the time for unabridged life stories. She nods violently, smiles and obstructs his flow. ‘Shall we meet after the seminar?’ That's the only escape she can think of at the moment. But when he nods enthusiastically, she realizes what she's gone and done.

Janaki recalls vividly Prakash's thumbnail, grown long to do nail etchings, for which he received much praise from the townspeople. When he sat staring at Rankala Lake, people would say, ‘After all, he's an artist.’ Being an artist, he would hasten home and not draw what he had seen, but paint rivers, hills and sunsets which he considered the more appropriate subjects for art. Janaki was granted elder-sister status in his life. As befitted this role, she too joined in praising his river-andhill paintings. Hambirrao, his grandfather, had been a drawing teacher in one of the better-known high schools in town. His special skill was drawing large portraits in charcoal from small photographs. The shading of facial lines, eyes and drapery was done with such finesse that you felt his subjects would start talking to you any minute. His portraits of Gandhi and Nehru hung in the front room of his house. Beside them also hung framed magazine covers of women by Dalal and Mulgaonkar. He had more of these covers stored away in a large trunk.