Calcutta's monsoon undid the babu's whole performance, and the patuas caught him at it: the leisured dandy crouched under his umbrella, hitching his good dhoti clear of the flood while his bare feet betray him. We composed it centred-frontal so his crouch reads as a single comic squat, the tilted umbrella canopy crowning the figure and the lifted dhoti swirling at his knee. The grey panjabi and umbrella keep him in the babu palette; the brick-red umbrella underside and the small red cravat are the only warm sparks. Faint ripple strokes at his feet are the entire weather — we refused a painted street so the joke stays the posture. Boneless shading rounds his belly and the umbrella's swell.