Bhupen Khakhar's artistic path led him to interact and form relationships with several well-known individuals in the literary world, from poets Nissim Ezekiel and Adil Jussawalla, to the celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie. The latter first saw the Khakhar's paintings at the Festival of India in UK in 1981-82, where the artist was part of a group show of contemporary Indian artists, including those from the Baroda school who painted in the quintessential narrative style. Shortly after, Rushdie returned to India to promote his recently released novel Midnight's Children. On his promotional tour, he gave a talk at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the M S University of Baroda, where he praised Khakhar, commenting on his intuitive style of painting.

Over the years, the novelist and the artist maintained a friendship, often paying homage to each other through their work. In Rushdie's 1995 novel The Moor's Last Sigh, he depicts a character called "the accountant," based on Khakhar. The same year, Rushdie chose Khakhar to paint his commissioned portrait for the National Portrait Gallery, London. The painting was incidentally titled The Moor, as a nod to Rushdie's book.

The present lot is perhaps the earliest collaboration between the two. Privately published in 1989, this book is a special and limited edition publication of two stories written by Rushdie, for which the artist produced a series of wood-cut illustrations. The combination of Rushdie's storytelling with Khakhar's narrative style of figuration, make the present lot a rare and unique cross-disciplinary collectible from the best of Indian art and literature.