Four years had passed since Michelangelo's return from Florence, and Rome was beginning to bore him. 'You can't find faces in Rome,' Michelangelo grumbled to Pope Julius. 'There's no character in the faces here. They all look alike!'

'And what do you see in my face?' the Pope asked, almost in jest.

Without even a pause, the artist replied, 'A burning candle.'

It took a minute for Pope Julius to understand the barbed words. 'I think I know what you mean...' he said finally, with a smile. 'I'm just one more candle that burns at the altar alongside those thousand others, right?'

Michelangelo was silent.

'Angelo,' the Pope continued, 'for four whole years you've been looking for Judas. I can't believe that in this vast universe that the Lord has created, where no two faces look alike, you cannot find faces, cannot discover models. Surely...'

Pope Julius looked pensively at the retreating back of his moody painter. Four years ago, Pope Julius had commissioned Michelangelo for a special task: to paint frescoes of important events from the Bible on the walls and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Now they were nearly done. Only The Last Judgement remained unfinished.

'I don't want any unpleasantness at this stage,' the Pope murmured to himself. He had not forgotten the time when Michelangelo was carving the Crucifixion-in wood-for the Church of the Holy Spirit and he had come excitedly to Julius, saying he had found just the right model. The model was a dead man! The Pope remembered ruefully how the funeral had been held up for twelve hours.

Bramante, the Pope thought now, yes, Bramante was a great painter too. He, unlike Michelangelo, proudly proclaimed that he conjured faces from his imagination.

But even the Pope had to admit this-Bramante's faces looked as though they had emerged from a common mould. According to the Medici, all Bramante's characters bore a strong family resemblance. Pope Julius had no choice to dismiss Bramante and approach Michelangelo.

Four years ago, Michelangelo had started painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He would lie for hours beneath the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, staring at it and muttering to himself.

In those lime-coated brick and mud walls, Angelo was searching for faces of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Judas. He swore he could see their flesh and blood forms. 'But their faces,' he mumbled, 'their faces are buried deep in the verses of the Bible! They elude me,'he groaned, 'they continue to elude!'

The pope had begun to doubt Michelangelo's sanity. Once he had stood very close and overheard Michelangelo repeating passages from the Bible. 'What exactly are you doing, Angelo?' the Pope had asked, curiously.

' What?' Angelo had looked up, startled.'Oh, I'm trying to unravel these verses. Maybe then, I'll find the faces.' There was a hint of despair in Michelangelo's voice.

The Pope understood Angelo's frustration. Julius remembered how, during one of his inspections, he had seen that Angelo had drawn several sketches of the Angel Gabriel. 'How did you see Gabriel?' he had asked. 'He doesn't belong to this world, either.'

Angelo had looked up to meet the Pope's eyes. 'I heard his voice in the Old Testament.'

'Then you must have heard God's voice, too,' the Pope had joked. 'I heard his silence.' Angelo's words were terse, abrupt. But the Pope had known without the shadow of a doubt that he had chosen the right man for the task.

'Eccentric, he had told the Vatican Committee.'But he is the only one who can paint the Sistine Chapel.'

Michelangelo had found Mary with the greatest 

It had happened long ago, the day he saw his mother carrying two pots of water strung from a bamboo stick on her shoulder. He had thought that the woman who had borne Christ in her womb would have been like his mother, just as thin and frail. He remembered watching his mother with unblinking eyes as she warmed the water for his father's bath. Her face reflected the warmth of the roaring fire-flushed, burning like molten gold. Michelangelo had immediately retired to his study to sketch that face, again and again

Ah, but that was a long, long time ago. Michelangelo remembered that they were living in Bologna then. He even remembered vividly the eatery at the corner of their street.

It was his special haunt. His father's too.

While his father sat eating inside, Michelangelo sat on a bench outside. He would buy hot peanuts from a nearby vendor, noticing how every time the man weighed them out, a few would fall to the ground. A naked urchin would scurry across the street, pick the nuts and give them to the vendor, quietly popping one into his mouth-one peanut for every time he helped the peanut-seller. Then he would wait for the next customer. the sight fascinated Angelo. He drew several sketches of the child. Many years later, while carving the Madonna of Bruges, he had used those sketches to make the little Jesus, small and naked.

Then the Pope had asked him to paint the frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. He had refused at first, telling the Pope point blank that he was a sculptor and not a painter.

he later agreed to a meeting in Rome, because it was the one creation that could ensure him a place in history. Not that immortality could be reason enough for Michelangelo. He had certain other immediate needs in this ephemeral life as well. Most of all, he needed money to buy marble.

The Pope had promised him money, but he had never given it. When Michelangelo reminded him, he had asked testily, 'Why do you love stone so much? Why not canvas and colours?'

'Colours merge,'Michelangelo had retorted. 'They lose their identity and mix with others, unlike marble.'

Four years had sped past. Ever since he had started work on the frescoes in the chapel, his sculpting had come to a standstill. And Angelo was as bored with colours as he was with Rome. He wanted to finish the painting 'The last Supper,' but his imagination failed him each time it came to the face of Judas. His was an impossible face to conceive.

Then, one day Michelangelo found him-his Judas! There he was in that  small, dingy eatery in Rome. A man with unusually bright, beady eyes. the man was brimming with restless energy, spitting here and there. he was prematurely bald and when he talked, the words tumbled out fast like coins from a torn pocket. The man sidled up to Angelo asking for change for a florin and ended up sharing his food. Later, Michelangelo saw the beady-eyed man at it again. he was asking someone else for change for a florin.

As Michelangelo watched the man, he realized that this was how the man tricked people for food: he would ask someone for change for a florin as an excuse for sharing their food.

It was not difficult for Angelo to persuade the beady-eyed man to accompany him to the chapel. Michelangelo explained to the man that he wanted to use his face as a model for Judas.'It will make you immortal, i promise,'Michelangelo said solemnly as he lifted the sheets covering the walls and the ceiling.

the man gaped, awestruck. He recovered enough to ask for a tidy sum. Michelangelo promptly agreed.

From that day on,the man came regularly to sit for Michelangelo.

one day, the man stood in Michelangelo's studio, browsing through a pile of old sketches. Suddenly, he paused at the picture of the urchin from Bologna. 'Who is this child?' he asked.

'He used to live in Bologna many years ago,' Michelangelo said. 'I gave little Jesus the face of this child.'

'Do you remember the child's name?'

'Yes , Marsolini,' said Michelangelo.

The man smiled. He rolled up his sleeve. There was a name tattooed on his arm- Marsolini. 'I am that child,' the man said. 'He whose face you are giving to Judas today.'

Sampooran Singh Kalra (b. 1936) is better known by his pen name Gulzar. He is known for his poetry in Hindu-Urdu, Punjab and other languages. He is an acclaimed lyricist for Hindi cinema, along with being an accomplished director. He has won recognition for his contribution to Indian literature as well as to Hindi cinema. Interestingly, before he became a reputed writer, Gulzar worked as a car mechanic.

barbed : (here) sharp or stinging

altar : a special table (in a church or a temple) where special religious ceremonies are performed

Judas : disciple of Jesus Christ who betrayed Christ

pensively : thoughtfully

commissioned : given a task or job to do

frescoes : paintings made on a moist plaster surface

ruefully : with sadness and regret

conjured : created

Medici : noble family of Florence who funded public works and helped artists

elude : (here) remain hidden from

unravel : (here) discover the meaning 

terse : to the point, brief

eccentric : strange and unusual

flushed : bright red because of heat or effort

retired to : go to for a purpose

Bologna : city in northern Italy

vividly : clearly

haunt : place which is frequently visited

urchin : small, homeless child, generally dressed in rags

scurry : move or run quickly

ephemeral : lasting a short time 

testily : with impatience and irritation 

conceive : imagine

dingy : dark and dirty

brimming with : full of 

sidled : moved in a stealthy manner

florin : old coin of Florence

tidy sum : a large amount of money