The school was preparing for the Rath Yatra festival, and every child had
been given a part. Aarav had been asked to paint the long banners that
would hang from the chariot — bright suns and waves and lotus flowers down
each side.
But Aarav did not want to paint banners. He wanted to be a drummer.
Ravi got to be a drummer. Ravi marched at the front with the big dhol
strapped to his chest, and everyone cheered when he played, and his hands
flew over the drum like dancing birds. Aarav watched from the back, paintbrush
in hand, and a hot, sour feeling sat in his stomach.
"It's not fair," he told Dadu that night. "Ravi gets to drum. Everybody
looks at him. I just sit in a corner getting paint on my fingers. I wish I
had his part."
Dadu was quiet for a while. Then he asked, "When you painted the sun on the
first banner today — what happened inside you?"
Aarav blinked. "I... forgot about everything. I forgot the time. I mixed
this orange that was so warm it almost looked alive. I didn't even hear the
bell ring."
"And when you try to drum?"
Aarav made a face. "I'm terrible. I can't keep the beat. My hands feel like
wood."
Dadu smiled gently. "So here is a strange thing, Aarav. You are wishing for
a part where your hands feel like wood, and turning away from a part where
you forget the whole world. Ravi forgets the world when he drums. You forget
it when you paint. You have each been given the work your own nature loves,
and you are trying to trade it away."
Aarav looked down at his paint-stained fingers.
"A copied drummer is never as fine as a true painter," said Dadu. "Even if
you learned Ravi's part perfectly, you would only ever be a second Ravi. But
there is only one painter who paints the way you do. Do your own work, even
if it comes out a little crooked, and your heart stays clean and whole. Chase
someone else's work, and you lose yourself trying to be them."
The next morning Aarav went back to his banners. He painted a sun so warm and
alive that when the chariot rolled past, people pointed and smiled. And at
the front, Ravi's drum kept the beat — and Aarav found, to his surprise, that
he was glad. Ravi had his work. Aarav had his own. And his own, he finally
understood, was exactly enough.
