The brief here was to let the water carry the picture: one calm tank, brimming with pink lotus, and two peacocks perched on its lip rather than a deity in the centre. We mirrored the birds across a vertical axis so the eye settles into stillness, then kept the cream margins open at the sides so the tall flanking lotus stems read as breathing room, not filler. The lotus-pond and peacock pairing is one of the most beloved secular pichwai subjects — painted to hang behind the deity in the monsoon and autumn seasons when the temple kamal-talai is in bloom. We held the pond to flat rose-pink and bilva-green on rippled blue, refusing any shaded depth, so it stays a folk pool and not a photographed one. The faux-gold of the stamens and border is flat vivid yellow throughout.