The brief was the best-smelling corner of any Indian evening — the chaat thela after dark — composed the way a Mewar painter set a night gathering, with a single bright focus and figures clustered toward it. It works because the grammar is already there: a lamplit centre, a diagonal of bodies leaning in, a lit palace standing in for the court backdrop. We kept the cast to a vendor mid-toss and a short queue with plates, let the hanging lantern and the kadhai's golden snacks be the warm heart, and set the lit palace and crescent moon behind to give it the hour. The thela's painted panel and the steam are the modern notes, drawn flat and folk-stylised so the bazaar reads as a courtly night first.