The whole village had come for the school's painting day, and Jeeva had
worked for a week on his Warli wall — a dancing circle of tiny stick-people,
a sun, a peacock, a row of huts. He had painted until his fingers ached.
In the morning the teacher walked along the line of paintings, stopped at
Jeeva's wall, and clapped her hands. "First prize," she said, and tied a red
ribbon to the corner. Jeeva's chest puffed up like a drum. He felt taller. He
felt wonderful. He wanted everyone, everyone, to look at him.
But that very same afternoon, as he carried his prize home along the dusty
lane, an older boy from the next village squinted at his ribbon and laughed.
"That?" the boy sneered. "Crooked little sticks. My baby cousin paints
better." And he walked off, still laughing.
All the wonderful feeling drained out of Jeeva at once. His chest went tight.
His eyes stung. The same painting that had made him soar in the morning now
made him want to hide. By the time he reached Aaji's courtyard he was nearly
in tears.
Aaji was grinding rice for paste. She listened to the whole story — the
ribbon, the boy, all of it — without stopping her steady, circling hand.
"So," she said at last. "In the morning one person's words made you fly. In
the afternoon another person's words made you fall. Tell me, little one — did
the painting change between morning and afternoon?"
Jeeva sniffed. "No. It's the same painting."
"And did *you* change?"
He thought. "No... I'm the same too."
"Then why," Aaji said gently, "did you go up so high and down so low? You let
one person hold the rope and another person cut it. You handed away your own
happiness twice in one day." She pressed a fingertip of cool paste to the
back of his hand. "Praise and blame are like that boy's words and the
teacher's words, flying past like birds. The wise person lets them fly
past. He says thank you for the ribbon, he shrugs at the insult, and inside
he stays exactly the same. A clod of mud, a stone, a lump of gold — to him
they are just *there*. The kind word, the unkind word — just *there*. He
keeps his own happiness in his own hands."
Jeeva looked at the red ribbon, then at the lane where the boy had gone. For
the first time, both of them felt very small, and he himself felt quietly,
steadily, like himself again.
