On the day of the village festival, Ravi ate and ate. There were warm puris, sweet kheer, fried pakoras, and round white laddus, and he did not stop until his belly was as tight as a drum. Then, remembering Nani's teaching, he sat down on his mat to meditate.

It was hopeless. His eyes drooped, his head nodded, and within moments he had slumped over and begun to snore, dreaming of laddus. Moti licked his nose until he woke with a start.

"I fell asleep!" Ravi groaned. "I couldn't keep my mind on anything."

The next morning, Ravi decided the problem was food itself. So he ate nothing at all — no breakfast, not a single bite — and sat down very proudly to meditate on an empty stomach. This was worse. His belly growled like a tiger. His head felt thin and dizzy. Every time he tried to settle, his hungry mind shouted only one word: *food, food, food.* He grew so cross and shaky that he snapped at poor Moti for no reason at all.

Nani found him sulking, hungry and ashamed. She sat beside him and laughed kindly. "Yesterday you tried to meditate as a stuffed sack of grain. Today you tried as a rattling empty pot. Neither one can sit still, child."

She fetched him a simple, ordinary meal — some rice, some dal, a little vegetable — not too much, not too little. "Eat enough to forget your belly," she said, "but not so much that it weighs you down. The old books say the same of sleep: rest enough that you are not tired, but do not sink into laziness either. Yoga is a path down the middle of the road, not along the cliff edges on either side."

After his quiet meal, Ravi sat once more. His belly was content and silent. His head was clear, neither heavy nor faint. And for the first time that whole festival weekend, his mind grew calm and stayed there.

"The middle path," he murmured. "Just right."