502 BIDIS is both an advertisement for the pleasures of and a warning against the hazards of smoking the curious little Indian cigarettes called bidis.  The two men are easily identified as natives of Rajasthan because of their traditional dress, which consists of a brightly colored turban for the younger man and a white one for his older counterpart. Both men wear a loincloth or dhoti, and the younger man wears a tunic called an angurkha and shoes called jootis.  Both have a characteristic Rajasthani handlebar moustache, and the older man smokes his bidi by making a chamber with his closed fist and inhaling through the opening between his forefinger and thumb, while the younger reaches for something hidden in his dhoti.  Perhaps it is his bundle of bidis, or perhaps it is something else.

The men are viewing the brightly colored fluorescent enamel advertisement and perhaps they are discussing it or something else of interest.  Seven bundles of bidis are strewn about the composition, and in the top right corner of the composition is two 100-ml bottles of codeine, the panacea for the die-hard bidi addict, who arises in the early morning with lungs full of tar and nicotine, hacking violently while performing his daily ablutions.  This hacking noise can be heard all throughout India, but nowhere have I heard it louder or more resounding than in Jaipur, where I lived for six months in 1997.

The color of the border at the bottom of the painting is derived from red ink and bidi ash.