It was the windiest night of the whole rainy season. Out in the courtyard the storm shoved at the banana trees, and Ravi watched two clay diyas his Nani had lit by the gate. Their little flames whipped this way and that, flattening, leaping, very nearly going out, then springing back. They never held still for even a breath.

"Look at them, Nani!" he shouted over the wind. "They can't make up their minds!"

Nani laughed and called him inside. She set a third diya — exactly the same kind of clay lamp, the same wick, the same drop of mustard oil — on the windowsill in the painting room, where the thick walls kept out every draught. Then she lit it.

Ravi stared. This flame did something the others could not. It stood up tall and straight, a small steady leaf of gold, and it did not move. Not a flicker. He leaned close and held his breath so he wouldn't disturb it. The light fell soft and even across the half-finished fish on Nani's painting.

"Same lamp," Nani said quietly. "Same little flame. Out there the wind won't let it rest, so it dances and struggles and gives a jumpy, shaky light. In here, where nothing pushes it, look how peaceful it is. And notice — the still flame is the one you can actually see by."

She touched his forehead gently. "Your mind is a flame too, beta. All day the wind blows at it — 'Did I win? What's for dinner? Where is Moti? Why did he say that?' — and your mind flaps about like the lamps by the gate. But when you sit quietly and let the wind die down inside, your mind becomes like this one. Still. Tall. Clear." She smiled. "That stillness is what the sages call yoga. Not a struggle — a flame that has finally found a windless place to stand."

Ravi sat down beside the steady little light and watched it for a long time. Outside, the storm raged on. But here, on the windowsill, one small flame burned without a single tremble — and slowly, watching it, his own breathing grew quiet and even too.