We briefed the ration dealer as the sharpest of the modern satires, in the direct line of Kalighat's old contempt for cheats and profiteers. He leans heavy and smug on his grey counter at the left, comfortable bulk under a grey shirt and a red-checked gamcha, dangling a hand-scale from one finger so that everyone can see the meagre bowl of rice in its far pan — the short measure performed almost as a courtesy. Behind him slate-grey grain sacks are heaped to the ceiling, the surplus he keeps. Opposite, a gaunt customer in a white dhoti and terracotta gamcha holds out his ration card, ribs and worry written into the boneless line of his body. We composed them as a facing-pair with the cheating scale at the centre, and let the contrast of bulk and hunger carry the whole picture — no shop sign, no brand, no government logo. The sting is the scale and the two bodies.