The brief turned on one motif: put the Goddess in a boat, because Shikotar Mata — also called Vahanvati — is the Mother sailors and coastal Gujarati communities call on for safe passage, and the vessel is her seat the way the lion or tiger is for the warrior Matas. So a long flat boat sails across the centre on a band of iron-black wave-lines with fish drawn swimming beneath, the four-armed Goddess enthroned amidships under a little beaded canopy, oarsmen working prow and stern. Two attendants sit close beside her to mark the boat as her shrine afloat. Around it I kept the usual calm ring of devotee and musician panels, and closed the field with a diamond-key border, because the Vaghri (Devipujak) painters of Ahmedabad built these cloths as portable shrines — and a portable shrine that can travel by water is exactly the idea here. Madder red, iron-black, cream, nothing else.