The artist couple arrived on the dot of nine as they promised they would. It didn’t matter that it was Diwali eve or that it was pouring or they were on a two-wheeler. The irritating plangent of the hotel room bell suddenly took on a dulcet charm as I imagined Mira to be pressing it. Her partner, the famous mural painter Tutti, always walked a step or two behind her languidly, his gaze shiftless over the sky and the sea but settling with fixation on her shapely buttocks. She walked