I found a passage in Nectar in a Sieve that eludes on the subject of trying to get over a difficulty or facing a challenge. Ruku and Nathan are trying to keep their hopes up even when the drought has the best of them and they're barely making end's meet. She says, " That ye3ar the rains failed. A week went by, two. We threw ourselves on the earth and we prayed./I thought she [Ruku's goddess] looked at me with compassion and I went away comforted, but no rain came" (Markandaya 71).