Neha was ten years old, and she had a question that wouldn't leave her alone.

It started at the temple. Every Tuesday evening, her grandfather — she called him Nana — took her to the small Hanuman temple at the end of their lane in Indore. The temple was nothing grand: a single room with a saffron flag on top, the floor cool under bare feet, the air thick with camphor and marigold. In the center stood a murti of Hanuman, painted orange, one hand raised, his eyes calm and fierce at the same time.

Nana would press his palms together, close his eyes, and stand perfectly still. Sometimes his lips moved. Sometimes they didn't. Neha tried to copy him, but her mind wandered — to the cracked tile near her left foot, to the sound of a scooter honking outside, to whether Amma had made kheer for dessert.

One evening, walking home through the lane where jasmine bushes leaned over compound walls, she asked: "Nana, should I pray to the murti? Or should I just close my eyes and think? My teacher at school says God is everywhere, not just in the statue."

Nana didn't answer immediately. He walked a few more steps, his chappals slapping softly on the warm road. Then he took her hand and turned toward the river.

They sat on the stone ghat as the sun went down. The Saraswati river — thin in summer, barely a ribbon of silver — caught the last light and held it. A kingfisher sat on a branch over the water, electric blue against the brown bank.

"Try it," Nana said. "Close your eyes. Think of God without a face, without a name. Just the feeling of something very large and very kind."

Neha closed her eyes. She tried. The darkness behind her eyelids felt enormous. She reached for something, but there was nothing to hold onto. It was like trying to hug the sky.

She opened her eyes. "It's hard."

Nana nodded. "Now think of Hanuman."

She closed her eyes again. Immediately she saw the orange face, the calm eyes, the raised hand. She felt the cool temple floor and smelled the camphor. Her heart felt warm, the way it did when Nana held her hand crossing a busy road.

"Both are real," Nana said quietly. "The river is God, and the murti is God. But the one where your heart opens — that's your way. And your way is enough."

Neha looked at the kingfisher. It dove into the water, came up with a flash of silver, and was gone. She didn't fully understand everything Nana had said. But she understood the warm feeling, and she decided to trust it.