It was only in the evening when the neighbourhood, normally boisterous, would calm down that he would finally be at ease with himself. In the solace of the evening, he would recline on his favourite chair and make portraits. Barring some of his close friends, nobody— not even his family members— knew about this hobby of his. It seemed as though he was happy to be known to the rest of the world as a doctor, and did not want (for some reasons) to unveil his love for art.

That day though, he kept staring blankly at the canvas for a long time, without even picking his paint brush. It looked as though he was very confused about his next subject. He had made lots of portraits, but none of them had ever given him an utter sense of satisfaction. He wanted to paint something very different this time around. And the thought had been playing on his mind for quite some time now.

Around midnight, totally frustrated with himself, he was preparing to sleep when, suddenly, something gripped his mind. He jumped off his recliner, reached for his canvas, fixed it in the frame beside the table and started running his paint strokes on it. Only about an hour later, when the he decided to take a cigarette break, did he realise the subject of the portrait he was working on. As he blew the smoke, a fuzzy, semi-formed image of a nude woman lying on a bed, with dishevelled hair, occluding her breasts, lied in front of him. Startled with himself, he stood there in front of the yet-to-be-completed portrait for a while and went to sleep.

•••

“What? You ended up making a portrait of a nude woman?” his friend, also a doctor by profession, said animatedly the next day when Avinash confided to him what happened the earlier night.

“No, the painting is yet to be completed.” He replied.

“Still, the work in progress suggests a nude portrait.”

“Yes, it does. But what has startled me even more is that I have no idea of the person whose portrait I am making,” the doctor said.

“So, what will you do?” asked the friend. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be under my control,” he said, and they parted ways for the day.

Walking back home, the doctor felt a little sheepish. As he neared his neighbourhood, he made sure not to make eye contacts with his neighbours or casual acquaintances he normally met on the street. He felt as though, doing so would reveal to them the inner workings of his mind. Upon reaching his rented accommodation, he suddenly heard someone call his name. He looked back timorously and found that it was his landlady. “How are you Avinash jee? You seem busy these days, working on something?” she asked, as she opened the gate.

“Nothing actually. Just the normal routine,” he replied curtly, not wanting to prolong the conversation.

“How do you spend your evening after returning from work? I don’t see you go anywhere.” She seemed to be in no mood to snap the conversation.

Flustered, the doctor mumbled something and excused himself to his room. From behind the door, he could listen to the lady crooning a Nepali song of the yore, as she climbed upstairs.

Hazy as he felt, he couldn’t conjure up enough strength to prepare his dinner and boiled a cupful of hard coffee for himself, hoping that the brew would make him feel better. Suddenly, realising that he had an unfinished project, he staggered to the room where the portrait had lain since yesterday. He glanced at the portrait once and immediately recoiled back in disgust. In a flash, the song that the landlady was crooning a while ago started ringing in his ears. He then imagined her humming the song and the contours of her body slowly unravelled themselves vividly before his eyes. Without much adieu, he realized that he was making a nude portrait of his landlady.  Embarrassed with himself, the doctor went to sleep and the portrait lay there, incomplete.