‘Brought up to lick boots,’ Vasant had muttered as they left.

Sonpatki's whispered secret had lingered in Ashesh's mind. The five words—I am also an artist—carried more meaning than their number suggested. Sonpatki was in fact saying, ‘I am not a mere yes-sir no-sir man. There's something hidden in me that makes me different from others, something of value. You and I belong together to a very special group of human beings called artists. That is why we recognize each other on sight. The two of us are alike. The only difference is that you exhibit your art, while mine lies hidden in the drawer of my desk.’

Within a few days, the secret ghazal composer had faded from Ashesh's consciousness. What he had left behind was the idea of the hidden artist revealed in the daily life of those who were not seen as artists. Around this idea had gathered innumerable people he had seen and heard, with skills in their hands, vision in their eyes, music in their throats, that brought joy to the daily struggle of life. He remembered the seller of fresh green gram at whose flamboyantly decorated handcart he had seen a mustachioed police constable aggressively demanding his weekly bribe; the typist outside the post office, whose fingers danced on the keys of the machine till the end of the line, then rose in a graceful parabola after he docked the carrier with a click; Reshma who for years had rolled out chapattis as soft as silk in deft strokes of metrical perfection; and the white-haired, bare-torsoed man he had seen in a crowded neighbourhood of squat cheek-by-jowl buildings, who sat out on the narrow ledge of a dark upstairs room amidst a lifetime's junk, playing an old guitar while the traffic roared by on the street below. These men and women had prompted him to do his Artists series of which he has now completed four works.

Ashesh has time to relax for a bit, read, listen to music, snooze. Perhaps catch a film in the evening. After a leisurely lunch, he stands on the balcony looking out into the midday sun that has robbed the world of colour. A sharp ray of light ricochets off a windowpane across the road and pierces his eye. He shuts his eyes in pain. Behind his eyelids blue and purple shapes swirl, electrified ants run and scatter.