I arrived in Jitwarpur after the morning fog had lifted from the mango trees, carrying a ruled notebook that looked foolish beside the walls. Every threshold was already busy with fish, lotus stalks, red hands, blue vines, and the kind of doubled line that refuses to let a figure stand alone.
Blankness is not peace here
The older painters spoke of emptiness as an unfinished promise, not a modern luxury. A border must hold a smaller border; a leaf must hold veins; the river must hold fish; the bride room must hold witnesses, because ceremony without witnesses is only furniture.
Every spare inch is asked to carry its share of the story.
By dusk, my notes had become less exact and more obedient. I stopped asking why the peacock had two outlines and began asking what would be lost if it had only one.