We briefed the Ostad as a classical Kalighat genre figure rather than a satire — the 19th-century patuas painted Calcutta's musicians, dancers and performers with the same affectionate brush they gave the gods. The whole composition rests on the hands: the right spread over the larger slate-grey bayan, the left poised on the smaller cream-headed dayan, with the head tipped back and the eyes half-closed in the listening posture every tabla player knows. We chose a three-quarter turn so both drums read at once and the brick-red dhoti can pool around the crossed legs in a single boneless sweep. The palette is deliberately quiet — warm grey skin, brick red, and the gold-traced ribs of the drum bodies — so the figure carries the picture without ornament. No stage, no audience, no instrument-shop clutter; just the player, the pair of drums and the held breath of the empty ground.