This relates to the Saga of a wall
The second painting job was done by Pappu and his wife. From Rajasthan, both were tall, long-limbed and with beautiful faces — sharp-featured, large-eyed, with that kind of Somali/Ethiopian beauty (do these peoples share recent history?). They spent two days painting that wall. He mixed the orange and white paint to make his particular version of what had existed previously (fossil remains in that end-wall). His wife (I forgot her name) told me that she brought in vegetables from the Azadpur sabzi mandi every day, and that I should just call her when I wanted paalak (I complained to her about the quality of the paalak with the local vendor). I did, but the quality of hers was no better. And I seem to have lost her telephone number.
The third painting job was done by two brothers. The more talkative one (the younger) told me they were from Bihar via Malda, Bengal. His father had migrated from Bihar to Delhi when they were small children. He went to school in Bihar and continued until class 7 or something like that and then gave it up. He does not particularly like to go back to their village? town? in Bihar, as life is quite hard there. His grandfather (great grandfather?) had been brought to Bihar from Malda by the British to do construction work, and his father and he and his brother continued in the same line. The dynamic between the two brothers was something to watch, the elder bossing the younger around and overseeing and criticising his work. Both were pretty careful and obviously took pride in their work.