The brief was a quiet self-portrait of the craft: the lotus floor-mandala the women are drawing held as the real centre, the two kneeling figures placed at opposite corners so the diagram itself stays the subject, a paste bowl and a lit diya for the moment. We held the fill near half so the geru ground reads as the swept courtyard floor around the work, the way an actual aipan sits with earth showing between its lines. This is how Aipan lives — Kumaoni women kneeling at the threshold or courtyard at dusk, fingertip in rice-paste, drawing the diagram for a festival or rite — so making that act the subject lets the print explain itself. The swastikas and corner flowers are the everyday blessing-marks; the diya marks the evening hour. White biswar on geru, no second colour.