Then, he stepped back and looked around the studio.
Rows of canvases lined three walls. Some framed, most not. Arranged not by subject or color, the way a gallery would arrange them, but by date.
His eyes went to the oldest one.
It was smaller than the others, the brushwork rougher, technically uneven in a way none of his later work was. A child's painting.
A girl in a fountain, muddy, laughing.
Rewa Palace.
Twenty-two years ago.
Bharat had just turned nine, and he was supposed to travel to Jogra that summer. But the visit had been delayed by two days for an important event. His grandmother had insisted he stay.
Rewa Palace was loud with festival noise. Temple bells in relentless rhythm. Drums. Laughter ricocheting off marble walls. Guests moving through the courtyards. The air was thick with perfume.
He endured it.
He always endured it.
He had learned to measure time in patterns. Twelve seconds between bell strikes. Twenty-four tiles between the fountain and the veranda. Three hundred and twelve steps around the inner courtyard.
If he counted, the noise became numbers.
If he counted, it made sense.
That afternoon, the courtyard was louder than usual because of a festival rehearsal.
Musicians were testing instruments. Samar was chasing Viraj through the corridors. Ram was arguing with a tutor. Voices overlapped. Footsteps collided.
It became too much.
He stood near a carved pillar and tried to regulate his breathing.
Inhale for four. Exhale for six.
A hand touched his shoulder from behind. Unexpected. He hadn't accounted for it.
Then the world fractured.
The bells stopped being bells. They became metal striking bone. The voices sharpened into something with edges.
He jerked away.
The nanny's face blurred in front of him, concerned, saying something he couldn't process.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't filter any of it. The light was too bright. The courtyard too crowded. The air too thick.
He ran.
Not blindly. Not screaming.
He ran with purpose, past the eastern gardens, beyond the old temple steps, toward the rolling hills he had already mapped in his mind.
There was a narrow passage between two slabs of rock. An opening most adults never noticed. He had found it before, at nine, and measured its width with his arms, memorized its exact incline.
He slipped inside.
