the year — unclear.. Udhampur.. the pool.. sun breaking on the water in long white strips.. chlorine in everything, in the air, in your skin after, in the towel that never quite dried between visits.. the 1m board.. jute wrapped over the wood.. rough under bare feet, that particular weave you
Did he ride it himself ? 1972 They arrived on a rickshaw — baba, dadi, bua — and I remember running out to meet them the way children run, which is to say without thinking about what running means. I don't remember saying namaste. I remember the rickshaw's rear,
The first door My father called me in the stern voice. The one that meant: now. The one that didn't explain itself or leave room for questions. I was eleven, in a check shirt and shorts and tennis shoes, and I went the way you go when that
A flame is a beautiful thing. It dances. It shifts. It holds within it a spectrum — orange, blue, yellow — never still, never the same twice. It draws the eye without asking for it. You can watch it for long stretches of time and not quite look away. It feels alive.
January 1979. Dehra Dun winter: the kind of cold that makes your thoughts brittle and your lies freeze on the way out. We did PT in blazers and flannels because changing into whites felt like a luxury the mountains hadn’t approved. Boxing season. An annual plague in the name
Thirty years, one sea, and the rediscovery of quiet. It’s that strange hour between night and morning — when the world hasn’t quite decided whether to wake or keep dreaming. Everything is suspended in that in-between: light unsure of its direction, the breeze still tasting of night. The
A father, a son, and a friend — chasing the growl, finding silence, and cherishing each other. The morning wasn’t looking good. The sky hung heavy and grey — a reluctant, sulking sort of weather. One of those days that seems to whisper, “maybe not today.” My son stepped out, frowned
Flow, Stillness & Courage “One forgets how to flow; the other remembers how to stand. Between them, a valley learns how to live.” I walked back to the river today. It wasn’t the same river, of course—it never is—but it remembered enough of me to nod. The
On Trust, Silence, and the Unspoken Exit There is a kind of silence that doesn’t arrive all at once. It enters gradually, almost politely — the silence between one breath and the next, between a question and an answer that never comes. It doesn’t announce itself as silence at
The river took a small bend and narrowed – on this rather calm stretch, I looked up to the fascinating view of the steep hillsides. The coniferous trees defying odds and growing tall on these edges and seemingly reaching out to their partners on the other steep bank – like forbidden lovers
As I sit in my room, perched atop a mountain in the charming town of Kalimpong, a breathtaking view unfolds before me. From my window, I gaze upon a garden adorned with fluttering Darchog – the Buddhist prayer flags, sway gracefully in the crisp morning mountain breeze. Beyond the small garden,
I woke up to the thought of the Bennu. A mythological creature from Egypt, it was a large bird with vibrant gold and red feathers and a majestic crest on its head. Its abode was atop the ben-ben stone – the pyramid shaped outcrop of land, the very first piece
A pre-dawn conversation between me and my wall — on fear, leadership, and the courage to think big. It was too late to sleep and too early to be up and about, but I was captivated by the beautiful silence only the pre-dawn brings. As I gazed out of
My Wall and I
It's 5 AM and I'm sitting alone in my room, looking out at the quiet city. The streetlights below are covered in a light mist, and a few lights are visible in the buildings across from me. Intermittently, a couple of dogs bark, maybe breaking the
Some mornings don’t begin — they unfold. As I step through the black wrought-iron gates and onto the circular driveway of Steve’s old bungalow, the world seems to exhale. The air here feels heavier, slower — the kind that remembers. Built in the British colonial era, the house wears
Rusty is Steve's dog. He is more than 13 years old now - and behaves appropriately, like an elderly gentleman. Steve tells me he had come across this small puppy on one of his runs, and the puppy had followed him home - that was 13 years back. Since then,
Reflections
The first is wrapped in night; the second, bathed in light. Between them — a lifetime learning what it means to arrive. The first frame: I’m standing outside a hospital on a clear, but impossibly dark night. The air hums — charged, uncertain — as if it knows something momentous is about