Ravi could not stop fidgeting. He scratched his elbow, then his ankle. He slumped, then twisted to peek at Moti, then tipped sideways to see who was walking past the gate. His head bobbed about like a sparrow's, looking everywhere at once.

"How am I supposed to be calm inside," he complained, "when my body keeps doing this?"

Nani set down her brush and beckoned him over to the wall, where her newest Madhubani painting was drying. It showed a row of figures — a musician, a dancer, a sage — and Ravi noticed, for the first time, how they were drawn. Every one of them sat or stood perfectly straight, spine like a young bamboo, head balanced level on the neck, eyes calm and forward.

"Look how the old painters drew people who were at peace," Nani said. "Never crumpled, never craning their necks to gawk. Body, neck, and head in one straight line, like a string held gently taut. The straightness is not stiffness — see how soft their faces are? It is *steadiness*."

She helped him settle on his mat. "Stack yourself up gently," she said. "Bones over bones, like a careful tower. Now let your eyes go soft — don't squeeze them shut, just lower them, as if you were looking toward the tip of your own nose. When the eyes stop running off in every direction, the mind stops running after them."

Ravi tried it. He sat tall, neck long, chin level. He let his gaze drop softly downward and stopped hunting for things to look at. To his surprise, the urge to fidget began to fade. With his body settled like one of the painted figures, there was suddenly nothing to twist toward, nothing to peek at.

"Oh," he whispered, eyes half-closed. "It's quieter already."

"That is the body teaching the mind," Nani said softly. "A steady seat, a straight back, and eyes that stop wandering. Even the great sages began right there."