Cookie Jar (Short Story by Smruti Choudhury)

Riyaz was ecstatic. His pieces were being headlined in the Kochi Biennale this year. He couldn’t stop showing off his latest stone work sculptures on Instagram.

He put his PR team into overdrive, asking them to get him magazine cover stories, radio spots and even getting featured in the Art & Culture Show of a leading television network. 

His friends threw him a party to celebrate this new milestone. He was always the most sought out sculptor in the country, but being showcased in the Biennale was instant catapult into the international market.

The party also got featured in Bombay Times the next day. His Instagram account had swelled considerably ever since the news was announced. He was invincible. And the cherry on top was that he got the radio spot. It was a 30-minute segment where they would do Q&A with art lovers.

The radio interview went fairly well, even though the station took too many ad breaks. The producer tried to explain that lifestyle segments like this needed to be sponsored. He didn’t care. He was a celebrity now.

The Q&A were mostly people gushing about how good he was and congratulating him for putting India on the map of international sculptors. It was a breeze. Then the producer signaled him that there was a potential buyer on the line and if Riyaz would be comfortable negotiating his art pieces on air.

Image Courtesy: Google

It was the last caller and Riyaz thought that was a perfect way to end such a fabulous interview segment just a day ahead of the Biennale closing.  

The buyer had already bought a small dancing girl made out of alabaster from his last exhibition and was hinting that he might be interested in the main display item in the exhibition. Riyaz quoted his price and the buyer was silent for a long time. Even the producer thought that the call was disconnected. But then the buyer said that he won’t be able to afford it, although he did want to know why Riyaz was quoting such a heavy price for a simple bone china cookie jar.

Riyaz explained that the bone china actually used his father’s ashes and that putting a reasonable price to it would mean that he had to part with it.