We briefed the tuition-master as the cane-wielding tyrant of every Bengali evening, set into Kalighat's long line of small-power figures. He looms from the left in an indigo kurta, spectacles flashing and moustache bristling, one hand raising a thin cane overhead while the other jabs a finger across the table. Opposite him, a boy kneels with his palms pressed together in plea, shrinking into the boneless curve of pure fright. Between them a low brown table carries the stack of books and the open notebook that are the supposed point of the evening. We composed them as a facing-pair so the raised cane and the folded hands frame the table like two verdicts, and kept the palette to indigo, white and the brown of the cane so the threat reads first. No school logo, no exam paper, no device — the satire, and the small wince it raises, live in the cane and the plea.