The brief was to paint Chilika as the working, living lagoon it is — fishing boats and the rare Irrawaddy dolphins in one frame — and to do it in patta line without turning the water into realism. We drew the cast net as a fine conch-white cone caught mid-throw so it becomes the composition's centre of gravity, built the lagoon from rows of white wave scrolls the way chitrakars render the cosmic ocean, and kept the dolphins as flat grey profile leaps so they read as the genuine Chilika sight rather than a mascot. The deep hingula-red ground is unusual and deliberate, giving the morning a warm intensity; the faced sun and birds are lifted from the classical vocabulary so the modern scene still belongs to the tradition. We left the boat a simple indigo crescent so the net and the dolphins carry the eye.