Flex Mentallo

We descend.

As we leave with my booty, I ask Shahina and Tahsina if they think it would be a good idea to introduce pat painting and singing to the children, to write, paint, sing and perform, perhaps on the theme of Child Rights? They think it is an excellent idea. I then ask if there is room in the vehicle for me so I can come back to Rajabazaar with them? They are more than happy to take me with them.

They are no match for her.

I buy some scrolls, with hard bargaining by Tahsina to ensure I get the best price.

The painters are also performers, who travel from village to village, singing songs of Rama and Sita while unscrolling the story illustrated by their paintings.

Pat paintings are story telling scrolls.

He has been to the UK on numerous occasions. He is a Muslim, living in a small village in the adjacent state of Bihar, and has trained his entire family in the art of Pat.

By chance, I had discovered that a leading pat painter, Iakub Chitrakar was at the mela. He is quite famous, but I doubt anyone but me realizes this. Here he is simply one of hundreds of craft workers with a booth.

I want to visit Rajabazaar at night, because at night all things are different. What is hidden in the day is often revealed at night, rather than the reverse. I also want to visit once without Purnabha or Lucina, simply because Shahina and others will naturally prefer not to use their limited English if instead they can converse in fluent Hindi. Hence they all talk over me in a language I don't speak, and I rarely get a full translation. I learn that there is a craft fair - a mela - on the other side of Kolkata. I arrange to meet Roshni there on the evening of the 23rd November. The teenage girls brought by Shahina have never been to a mela before.

Be a girl born in Rajabazaar. Sleep on the floor beneath your parents bed, along with four or five brothers and sisters, in a shoe box of a home. Hope that you will not contract a life threatening illness, and that you will survive serious malnourishment and that it will not stunt your growth. Realize that your parents may of necessity arrange to have you illegally married at fourteen, because at that age no bride price will be needed by the groom's family. If you are unlucky, the groom may be decades older than you. Work like a drudge, have many children, and by the time you are twenty you will be worn out. By thirty you will look twenty years older. And you will remember what your parents did, and in the same circumstances perhaps be tempted to do the same in turn to your own daughters...

This

That is still speculation at this point. Jimbo said he had not sold the book, and it was still with him. It's all moot. He's taking days to weigh his integrity against a couple hundred dollars. I know I will never deal with the guy. I assume others are on the same page. I speculate that he sees himself as a man of integrity. (What person doesn't? - Don't answer that, Billy!) In which case he could be struggling to accept that he has made a mistake, especially such an egregious one. We are all experts at self-deception - trust me, I know! Or to put it another way - the rock on which we stand is also the one on which we founder. Yep. What is apparent to others is not always apparent to yourself. We are all complicated. But Billy is a special snowflake. He has insights others lack. Especially into the complexity of human nature and motivation.

Although I can't defend his actions, you're not alone in hoping Jimbo can somehow make this all work out. It would be cathartic, wouldn't it?

That is still speculation at this point. Jimbo said he had not sold the book, and it was still with him. It's all moot. He's taking days to weigh his integrity against a couple hundred dollars. I know I will never deal with the guy. I assume others are on the same page. I speculate that he sees himself as a man of integrity. (What person doesn't? - Don't answer that, Billy!) In which case he could be struggling to accept that he has made a mistake, especially such an egregious one. We are all experts at self-deception - trust me, I know! Or to put it another way - the rock on which we stand is also the one on which we founder.

threadkillerbrian?