Ravi had been painting a Madhubani fish all afternoon, and it had gone wrong. The black outline he drew with the bamboo pen had wobbled, then smudged, then run into a fat ugly blob right where the fish's eye should be. He stared at it, and his whole face crumpled.

"It's ruined," he said. He pushed the paper away so hard it slid off the mat. "I can't do this. I'm no good at it. I'm never painting again." He flopped backward onto the floor and pulled his knees to his chest, a small angry knot of a boy.

Nani did not rush to him. She did not snatch up the paper or say "there, there." She kept dipping her own brush, calm as the pond at dawn, and let him lie there. After a while, when his angry breathing had slowed, she spoke without looking up.

"Do you know, Ravi, there is one thing in this whole world that I cannot do for you, however much I love you?"

Ravi sniffed. "What?"

"I cannot pick up that brush and put it back in your hand. I mean — I could," she said, "I could place it right between your fingers. But I cannot make your fingers want to hold it again. That part lives inside you, and only you can reach it."

Ravi turned his head to look at her.

"Right now," Nani went on gently, "there are two Ravis lying on my floor. One Ravi is whispering, 'You're no good, give up, stay down.' That Ravi is your own enemy, and he is very real. But there is another Ravi, just as real, who can sit up, reach out, and try the eye again. That Ravi is your own best friend. They are both you. The whole question is — which one will you listen to?"

For a long moment Ravi did not move. Then, slowly, he sat up. He reached across the mat and pulled the smudged paper back toward him. He looked at the ugly blob, and instead of an eye, he turned it — with one careful curving stroke — into a little bubble rising from the fish's mouth.

Nani's eyes crinkled. "There he is," she said softly. "Your own friend. He was inside you the whole time. No one lifts you back to the brush but you."