ɪɴɴᴇʀ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢꜱ💖

sometimes it settles in my chest. sometimes it borrows my mind. sometimes it is just a quiet hesitation about how things will go. sometimes it is a thousand questions standing at the edge of tomorrow, asking me to prepare for endings that haven't even arrived. sometimes it is all of them at once. sometimes it feels like i'm carrying something i cannot name. i keep looking for a reason, for one single thing i can point at and say, "this is it." but it is never just one thing. it is a little bit of yesterday, a little bit of tomorrow, and very little of today. it is memories refusing to leave and possibilities refusing to stay quiet. sometimes i think too far ahead. sometimes i go too far back. sometimes i stand in the middle, unable to move because every direction feels uncertain. i replay conversations that are already over. i write new ones for people who haven't even spoken yet. i imagine every possible outcome until i don't know which one is real anymore. sometimes it is not sadness. sometimes it is not fear either. sometimes it is just a strange heaviness that quietly follows me around, asking nothing, saying nothing, yet making itself known in every breath i take. sometimes it is so soft that i almost forget it is there. sometimes it becomes the only thing i can feel. sometimes i wonder if my mind is trying too hard to protect me. if all these thoughts are simply love dressed as fear, trying to make sure nothing catches me by surprise. but somewhere along the way, i forgot that not everything needs to be predicted to be survived. not every silence is a warning. not every pause means something is about to fall apart. sometimes i just wish my heart and my mind would stop pulling me in different directions. sometimes i wish they would sit together for a while, say nothing and simply let me be.

perhaps the sun was only pretending. every morning, it rises with such conviction, as though beginning again were the easiest thing in the world. it pours gold over the same streets, the same windows, the same empty corners, and never once looks back. i have always envied it. the moon, however, has never learned how to leave. it keeps returning to places it has already illuminated, as though light itself could become a form of longing. perhaps that is why the sea still answers it. perhaps some things are simply made to remember. i used to believe forgetting was an act of the mind. now i think the mind only writes the story. the body keeps the archives. it stores entire seasons inside the smallest things. a morning that feels heavier for no visible reason, a date you never meant to remember, a sadness that arrives hours before its own explanation. perhaps grief does not travel through memory at all. perhaps it travels the way moonlight does. touching everything without making a sound, asking nothing of us except to notice that something has quietly changed. there are days when the sun insists this is ordinary. and somehow, every part of me agrees, except my heartbeat. it pauses at invisible anniversaries. it waits for footsteps that no longer belong to this life. it mourns traditions my thoughts have already misplaced. perhaps that is what love leaves behind. an orbit. something inside us that keeps circling what is no longer there, as faithfully as the moon returns to a sky so if i seem quiet on certain mornings, do not ask what i am remembering. i may not know. the mind will always arrive a little late. it is the body that reaches the date first. and perhaps that has always been the truest definition of love. not that it refuses to end, but that, even after it has, some part of you still rises with the sun, and still returns with the moon.

after so many days, the weather finally feels alive again. alive in the way a face lights up when it sees someone it has been missing for months. the air feels different today. as if the sky woke up nd remembered an old love. the clouds keep gathering nd drifting apart like two people standing at a railway station after a long distance relationship, unsure whether to laugh first or cry first when they finally meet. even the wind feels restless. it keeps touching everything. the trees. the windows. the corners of sleeves. as if it can't stop reaching out. as if jt spent too many days apart nd now wants wants to make sure everything it loves is still here. i don't know if weather can yearn.. but if it can, this must be what yearning looks like. nothing feels rushed right now, nd it just feels like a letter that took months to arrive. offo I'm just so happyyyy... everything seems a little lighter, nd it makes me stop in the middle of whatever I was doing nd stare outside for no reason at all!!! and now I just want to stay five minutes longer on my terrace. and then another five? and another...shh it feels like the entire world had exhaled after holding its breath for far too long. maybe that's why i love weather like this. bcze it reminds me that longing is not always painful. sometimes longing is what makes the reunion beautiful. the earth spends months waiting for rain. the rain spends months gathering itself somewhere beyond sight...nd when they finally meet, nobody calls it waiting anymore. they call it monsoon. perhaps love is something like that too. two things quietly missing each other for a very long time nd then finally finding their way back. maybe? yeah maybe... today the sky looks loved. the wind looks loved. the trees look loved. nd somehow, standing here beneath all of it, so do i. so i'll stay a little longer. just five more minutes. to watch the clouds flirt with the horizon. to listen to the leaves gossip with the wind. to let this weather place its gentle hand over my heart nd remind me that some reunions take time. nd that perhaps the most beautiful things in this world re not the things that arrive quickly but the things that spend a while longing for each other first.

there is a weird sort of loneliness that arrives not when the room is empty but when it is crowded. it is the loneliness of being known and yet unseen. of having your name remembered by many, your face recognized by many, your stories half-heard by many and still carrying the suspicion that nobody has truly stepped inside the chambers of your heart and lingered there long enough to understand the furniture. people often imagine solitude as a deserted road, a vacant house, a silent supper table. but i have come to believe that the loneliest place on earth is a room full of people who know everything about your life except who you are. they know your favourite colour but not the reason you chose it. they know where you live but not where your thoughts go when the night grows old. they know your laughter but not the sorrow hidden beneath it. they know the outline of you, never the substance. and perhaps that is why so many souls wander through life with an ache they can't name. because to be understood is one of the oldest human hungers. older than ambition. older than vanity. older, perhaps, than love itself. what most people seek is not admiration. admiration stands at a distance and applauds. what they seek is recognition. someone who notices the tremor in their voice before the tears arrive. someone who understands the sentence that was never spoken. someone who reads the silence correctly. and yet, strangely enough, the world has become rich in spectators and poor in witnesses. everyone is looking. very few are seeing. and so people continue offering pieces of themselves to one another like handwritten letters cast into the sea. a little kindness here. a little devotion there. a little hope folded carefully into ordinary conversations. not because they expect a trophy for loving deeply. not because they desire praise. but because somewhere in the secret corners of the heart lives a simple wish: "if i hand you something precious from within me, perhaps you will hand something back." it sounds so modest when written like that. almost childish. and yet it is the wish upon which entire lives are built. the baker wakes before dawn hoping his labour matters to someone. the poet fills pages hoping a stranger might whisper, "i know exactly what you mean." the lover waits by the window hoping their affection has not travelled only one way. all of us, in one form or another, are extending our hands into the dark and hoping another hand reaches back. perhaps that is why unreturned love hurts so profoundly. not because our pride is wounded, but because it confronts us with a terrible possibility that everything we carried so carefully may have arrived at an empty doorstep. still, i think there is something beautiful about those who continue to love despite this. those old-fashioned souls who write long letters, who remember birthdays, who save pressed flowers between pages, who ask one more question when everyone else has moved on. they remind me that the value of love has never been determined by its reward, only by its sincerity. and perhaps understanding is rare for the same reason ancient treasures are rare. it requires patience. attention. curiosity. the willingness to remain. most people pass through one another's lives like tourists. understanding asks us to become residents. and god, what a difficult thing that has become. to stay. to listen. to notice. to understand. yet i suspect that somewhere, for every soul who fears they are unseen, there exists another soul quietly searching for someone exactly like them. someone who speaks their language of longing. someone who will finally look beyond the outline and discover the person standing there all along. until then, we keep offering what we have. our stories. our tenderness. our ridiculous, hopeful little hearts. and perhaps that, in itself, is an act of courage.

okay, so maybe this sounds stupid but I think I finally figured it out a little… or maybe not figured out figured out, but understood enough to breathe easier tonight. because for so long, I genuinely thought life was supposed to become something huge someday. like one day, suddenly everything would make sense and I’d become this sorted, intelligent person with a perfect routine, healed heart, clear skin, stable emotions and ambitions all lined up neatly like books on a shelf. but agh, that day never came. instead, life kept happening in pieces. messy, random, inconvenient pieces. and maybe that’s when it hit me..what if the purpose was never to become this perfect, untouchable version of myself? what if it’s just… to leave bits of myself everywhere, lovingly. like little fingerprints of existence. like laughing too loudly in serious moments. sending paragraphs people reread years later. making someone feel less alone for five minutes. sharing songs that sound like rainy evenings. because honestly, when I think about people I love, I don’t remember their achievements first. I remember the way they laughed mid sentence. the way they made ordinary walks feel cinematic. the way they noticed tiny things. the way they stayed. and maybe that’s all humans are supposed to do. stay soft enough to leave warmth behind. I don’t know. I just think life feels lighter after realizing this. like maybe I don’t need to constantly become more, and more, and more. maybe I just need to exist fully. beautifully sometimes, ridiculously most times. because god, I am ridiculous. I cry over songs. I romanticize grocery stores when the lighting feels poetic. I get emotionally attached to random conversations. I stare at the moon like it personally understands me. I save screenshots of words that make my chest ache. and for the longest time, I thought these things made me weak or unserious. but maybe this is the magic. maybe being deeply alive is the magic. maybe noticing things is the magic. maybe caring this much, despite everything, is the magic. and maybe the purpose of life is literally just that.. to sprinkle your strange little soul onto this exhausted world before you leave it. through love. through humour. through art. through kindness. through the way you make people feel seen. I don’t know. I’m still confused about almost everything else. career. future. people. myself. but tonight, this thought made me feel strangely peaceful. like maybe I don’t have to conquer life. maybe I just have to touch it gently while I’m here.

it is a curious thing, the manner in which the heart alters its disposition without so much as a formal declaration. one does not wake to find oneself entirely renewed, rather, there is a subtle rearrangement. for a long while, I had grown accustomed to a certain heaviness. not the sort that announces itself in great displays, but one that settle persistently. it lingers in pauses, in silences, in the spaces where something once existed and no longer does. and though life continues, as it must, there remains an undercurrent, a faint and constant awareness of all that has been endured. I do not speak of it often. indeed, I have learned not to. there is a peculiar dignity in carrying one’s unrest quietly, in allowing the world to see only what is composed and manageable. yet the heart, in its private hours, is far less restrained. it remembers with an accuracy that is both admirable and cruel, revisiting moments not to understand them, but simply because they have left their mark too distinctly to be ignored. and yet, most unexpectedly, there has arisen within me of late a feeling I scarcely recognise. it does not banish what has been, nor does it attempt to replace it. rather, it exists alongside it, as though something new has found its way into a space long occupied by absence. it is not bold enough to call itself happiness, nor certain enough to claim permanence. but it is present and that alone renders it remarkable. there are instances when I become aware of it. in those moments, something within me softens, as though the heart, having long braced itself against disappointment, has forgotten, if only for an instant, to remain guarded. and in that forgetting, there is a kind of relief so tender that it borders on pain. I find myself, at times, quite overcome by it. not with sorrow, as one might expect, but with something far more difficult to name. it gathers quietly, a fullness in the chest, an unsteady warmth that threatens to reveal itself in tears. and I cannot help but wonder that what is this, if not the return of something I had, perhaps, ceased to believe in? it is a most unreasonable inclination. for I possess no clear evidence, no tangible assurance that anything awaits me beyond the present moment. and yet, there persists within me a sense, fragile, yes, but then that something is drawing nearer. not with haste, not with certainty, but with a intention that feels… deliberate. perhaps I am mistaken. perhaps this is nothing more than the heart, in its weariness, reaching for comfort where there is none. but even so, I find that I cannot entirely dismiss it. for it does not feel imagined. it feels… discovered. and if I allow myself, just briefly, to trust in it. to believe that this gentle stirring is not without cause, then I must also admit that after all the stillness, there may yet be something ahead of me which is not defined by what has been lost, but by what is, even now, finding its way to me.

where does one go when everything feels like the end of the world?

am i becoming someone i once needed or just someone i learned to survive as between what i feel and what i show, where did the truth get lost can a heart stay soft when it has been handled carelessly again and again do i really forgive or do i just get tired of remembering every time i say “i’m fine,” who exactly am i protecting for how long will i keep choosing people who never really choose me growing up… was it meant to feel this lonely even in crowded rooms how many versions of me have i abandoned just to be accepted is this who i am or just who i had to become just how much of my silence is peace and how much is fear keeping everything inside… is it strength or slow damage loving deeply… is it my gift or my weakness maybe i expect too much or maybe i just expect the bare minimum no one really knows me fully… not even me sometimes or maybe i do know myself and i’m just scared to admit it pretending to be okay… when did that become my habit questions keep living in me but answers rarely stay running from my thoughts or sitting with them… which one heals sometimes i miss people who never even stayed the things i never said… do they still exist somewhere inside me under all this noise… is there a unknown version of me waiting very often i wonder if i’m healing or just distracting myself when did i start needing so much reassurance to feel enough x times i told myself “it’s okay”… but was it really yet i still hope… even after everything, why do i still hope zoning out of my own life… am i living or just passing through.. and if you read closely… you’ll find me hidden from a to z

someone said~ you don’t end up doing nothing unless you’re in a coma… so don’t be a cry baby. and i~ i hear it i hear it again i hear it again and again and something in me~ something in me resists something in me resists softly something in me resists softly but does not leave because i~ i say i do nothing i say i do nothing often i say i do nothing and believe it but then~ but then time moves but then time moves anyway but then time moves anyway without asking me so i~ i am i am here i am here still and if i~ if i am here if i am here still if i am here still breathing then i~ i am doing i am doing something i am doing something always even when i~ even when i stop even when i stop trying even when i stop trying to try my mind~ my mind thinks my mind thinks endlessly my mind thinks endlessly without permission my body~ my body stays my body stays present my body stays present in time so i~ i am not nothing i am not nothing ever i am not nothing even in stillness then what~ then what is nothing then what is nothing that i claim then what is nothing that i hide behind maybe~ maybe nothing is not empty maybe nothing is not empty at all maybe nothing is something i refuse to name because i~ i avoid i avoid quietly i avoid quietly and call it nothing i delay~ i delay softly i delay softly and repeatedly i delay softly and repeatedly and pretend it disappears but it~ but it stays but it stays inside but it stays inside as unfinished motion so i~ i am choosing i am choosing always i am choosing always even in silence even when i~ even when i don’t decide even when i don’t decide clearly even when i don’t decide clearly at all there is~ there is a direction there is a direction forming there is a direction forming without me noticing and this~ and this is strange and this is strange and unsettling and this is strange and unsettling and quiet because i~ i am not absent i am not absent ever i am not absent even when i disappear from myself unless~ unless i am gone unless i am gone completely unless i am gone completely into nothing and that~ and that is rare and that is rare and distant and that is rare and distant and not this so i~ i cannot escape i cannot escape doing i cannot escape doing something even if i~ even if i refuse even if i refuse meaning even if i refuse meaning itself still~ still something builds still something builds slowly still something builds slowly out of me and i~ i do not see i do not see clearly i do not see clearly what it becomes because i~ i call it nothing i call it nothing daily i call it nothing daily to feel lighter but it~ but it is not nothing but it is not nothing at all but it is not nothing and never was so then~ so then what so then what am i doing so then what am i doing when i say nothing am i~ am i hiding am i hiding from truth am i hiding from truth inside simple words or am i~ or am i afraid or am i afraid to admit or am i afraid to admit that i exist in every moment and if i~ and if i exist and if i exist always and if i exist always through action then this~ then this life then this life is moving then this life is moving whether i see it or not and one day~ and one day i will look and one day i will look back and one day i will look back at all these “nothings” and maybe~ and maybe i will see and maybe i will see clearly and maybe i will see clearly for the first time that i~ i was i was doing i was doing something always

i am neither here nor ready for what cometh, only suspended in a strange, tender misery, as though the morrow expecteth a self I do not yet know how to become.

i have been told that time is a careful healer that it folds days neatly and puts them away where they cannot be reached but if a night should arrive quietly misplaced and i find myself awake at 2:01 with something unseen sitting beside me then perhaps time has missed a corner there are dates that do not ask they return as if they belong to the bones more than the mind and if i move through the day as though nothing stirs yet feel a small unrest then i suppose there are things that do not leave only wait and if sleep refuses me tonight for no reason i can properly name then maybe i have remembered something without trying to and that must be enough though mine own heart seems not persuaded and if i close my eyes will it leave or come closer i do not know if i am missing something or being called back to it or if somewhere without my knowing i never really left at all

What we can't assimilate "being human"? I know most of you, to whomever I share this- you might not have enough interest in reading long so I'd do it succinctly-Well, Any fool can know, The point is to understand- We're all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding. My wounds taught me not to harm others and show empathy-Nothing on life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fearless to our people, to our heart, and most importantly to our loved ones and US~ I am so tired of waiting, Aren't you?. For the world to become good and beautiful and kind- Is it too much to ask or expect? You know who's going through a lot right now? Literally everyone- everyone has certain problems so why not JUST BE KIND TO EVERYONE?

2/2 maybe they were just holding questions. questions that don’t solve anything… but change the way you see everything. because the more i sit with this… the more confusing it becomes. is love patience… or is it courage? is it waiting… or is it knowing when to walk away? is it devotion… or is it self-respect? and is there really a line between them… or do they quietly become each other at some point? and then the most unsettling question, if love is this deep, this still, this aware… then why does so much of what we call love today feel so restless… so loud… so easily broken? are we loving wrong… or are we just afraid of loving in a way that asks more from us? because a love like gauri and shiv is not convenient. it asks you to sit with yourself. to become someone who can hold silence without assuming absence. to trust without constantly checking. to stay… not because you are afraid to leave, but because you understand why you are there. and honestly… how many of us can do that? this gangaur, i am not celebrating like before. i am not just watching. i am listening. to the songs that now feel like they are saying something i still can’t fully understand… to the rituals that feel like they are pointing somewhere deeper than themselves… to the silence between everything… where the real meaning probably lives. and somewhere in all of this… i keep coming back to the same thought. maybe love was never meant to be easy to understand. maybe it was meant to be experienced slowly… like a story you don’t finish in one sitting. or maybe… we have been trying to understand love in ways it was never meant to be understood. and if that is true… then what exactly are we searching for when we say we want love? a person? a feeling? or a mirror that shows us everything we are not ready to see yet? i don’t know. and maybe that’s the point. because some questions are not meant to be answered. they are meant to stay. to sit with you. to follow you. to quietly change you… without ever explaining how. this gangaur… i am still not sure what love really is. but for the first time… i feel like i am asking the right questions. or maybe… just better ones. or maybe not. i don’t know. do you?

1/2 i have seen gangaur since childhood. every year, the same rituals returned like a season that never forgets its way… the same songs, the same idols of gauri and shiv, the same bright sarees, the same hands soaked in mehendi… and those same eyes. those eyes. as a child, i never understood them. they were smiling, laughing, singing… and yet there was something deeper sitting inside them. something i could see, but not touch. like a word on the tip of the tongue that never fully comes out. back then, gangaur was simple for me. it was colors. sweets. noise. movement. a reason to step outside and feel part of something beautiful. but growing up has a strange way of peeling things. it doesn’t remove them… it removes you from your old way of seeing them. and slowly, the same festival that once felt light… starts to feel heavy with meaning. i remember the phase when i began to question everything. why do women fast? why do they pray for a husband? why is love always shown like something you have to wait for… suffer for… prove again and again? why does devotion look so close to longing… and longing so close to pain? was love always meant to be like this? or did we make it like this? and honestly… for a long time, it all felt outdated to me. like a story that belonged to another time… another world… another kind of people who believed in things we no longer do. this year, when gangaur came again, i didn’t rush through it. and for the first time… it didn’t feel like a festival. it felt like a question. when i look at gauri and shiv now, i don’t see idols. i see a kind of love that is not desperate… not constantly asking to be seen. it just… is. but what does that even mean? gauri chose shiv. but what does it mean to choose someone? is it a one-time decision… or is it something you wake up and do again every day, even on the days when it feels difficult, unclear, almost silent? and shiv… he is everything the world runs after… power, detachment, completeness. yet he turns towards her. why? what makes someone who needs nothing… still choose someone? is love then a need… or is it a decision beyond need? and if it is a decision… how many of us are actually capable of making it? we talk so much about love today. but do we understand it… or do we just react to it? we want quick replies, quick confessions, quick certainty. but what happens when love doesn’t move quickly? what happens when it asks you to wait… not in suffering, but in stillness? is waiting always painful… or have we just never learned how to wait without losing ourselves? and then comes the question that feels uncomfortable to sit with, are we even ready for the kind of love we keep asking for? because a love like gauri’s is not just soft. it is patient. it is rooted. it does not beg… but it does not run away at the first sign of difficulty either. and a love like shiv’s is not just deep. it is steady. it is aware. it does not cling… but when it chooses, it does not waver. so where do we stand? somewhere between impatience and fear? somewhere between wanting to be chosen… and being too restless to truly choose? and then there is devotion. this word that feels so ancient… almost uncomfortable in today’s world. devotion. what does it even mean now? to lose yourself in someone? or to find a deeper version of yourself through someone? when gauri prays, fasts, waits… is she shrinking herself? or is she building something inside her that we have forgotten how to build? and when shiv meditates, withdraws, stays silent… is he distant? or is he simply not afraid of being alone? what if love is not about filling emptiness… but about meeting someone when you are already whole? but then again… what does “whole” even mean? are we ever whole? or are we just learning to carry our incompleteness better? and if two incomplete people come together… does love complete them… or does it expose everything they have been trying to hide? sometimes i wonder… maybe the old stories were never trying to give us answers.

2/2 this one? the place you’re sitting? the way the air feels tonight? do we realise the importance of moments only after they pass? and if that’s true… are we missing most of life while it’s happening? or is missing it part of being human? another question. what does it actually mean to live well? is it peace? excitement? achievement? love? can one person have all of those? or do we spend our lives trading one for another? and if you had to choose only one… what would it be? and why that one? and if your answer changed tomorrow… would that mean you were wrong today? or simply growing? sometimes i think life is less about answers and more about staying curious. but even that leads to another question. do we stay curious as we grow older… or do we slowly become certain? and which one is better? certainty… or curiosity? security… or possibility? answers… or questions? and now that you’ve reached this point, maybe the real question is simple. what question have you been avoiding lately? have you answered it yet? or are you still standing at the edge of it… wondering what the answer might change? and if you’re still wondering… maybe that’s where the real thinking begins.

1/2 i’ve been thinking about questions lately. like this one: when did you last feel completely sure about something? and what does "sure" even mean? is it the absence of doubt… or just the moment before doubt returns? do people ever live without questioning themselves, or do they simply get better at ignoring the questions? and if we are always questioning things, why do we pretend we have answers? think about it. when someone asks you “how are you?”, do you answer honestly? or do you answer correctly? and what would happen if one day you actually told the truth? would the conversation deepen… or would it become uncomfortable? why do we fear uncomfortable honesty so much? is it because people might leave? or because they might stay and actually see us? and what exactly are we afraid they’ll see? our confusion? our contradictions? or the simple fact that we don’t fully understand ourselves either? that thought leads to another question. how much of your life is chosen… and how much is simply inherited? the way you think. the things you want. the things you believe success looks like. did you choose those… or did they quietly arrive from family, society, the internet, people you admired? and if you removed all those influences for a moment, what would "you" actually want? would you still want the same life? or would you pause and realise you never asked that question properly? and if you never asked it… why not? were you busy surviving? busy proving something? busy keeping up? keeping up with whom, exactly? have you ever noticed how strange comparison is? someone you’ve never met achieves something and suddenly your own life feels delayed. why does that happen? who taught us that timelines should match? is there really a correct age to succeed, to settle, to find love, to understand life? or are we all quietly guessing while pretending there’s a map? and speaking of maps… do you know where you’re actually going? not the next task. not the next year. the direction. if someone stopped you right now and asked: “why are you doing what you’re doing?” would your answer be clear? or would it take a long pause? and if it takes a pause… what does that pause mean? uncertainty? honesty? or the beginning of a new question? because sometimes questions open other questions. when was the last time you sat alone without music, without your phone, without distraction? what happened in that silence? did your mind become calm… or did it become louder? what thoughts showed up first? were they kind to you? or were they the kind that remind you of things you didn’t do, mistakes you made, people you lost, words you never said? and why is it that our minds return to those things more than the good ones? is the brain designed that way… or have we trained it to search for what’s missing? and another thing. how many versions of you exist right now? the one your family knows. the one your friends see. the one strangers meet. the one that exists only in your own thoughts. which one is the real one? or are they all real in different ways? and if they are all real… why do we feel like imposters sometimes? why does success feel temporary? why does happiness feel like it might disappear the moment we notice it? have you ever asked yourself why joy sometimes makes us nervous? is it because we’re waiting for something to go wrong? and where did we learn that pattern? maybe from life. maybe from experience. maybe from watching things change. which brings another question. how do you know when something in your life has truly ended? is it when the event ends… or when the feeling ends? because sometimes a moment is over but it keeps living in your thoughts for years. why does memory hold certain things so tightly? why that one conversation? that one evening? that one person? what makes certain moments stay? and if memories shape us this much… what kind of memories are we creating right now without noticing? ten years from now, which ordinary moment from today might suddenly feel important?

i wrote a letter today. no, that is not true. i tried to write a letter today. it began like most letters begin. a blank page. a pen that hesitated a little. a name that almost wrote itself at the top before i stopped my own hand. strange how the body remembers directions the mind is trying to forget. i sat there for a long time just looking at the paper. and then i thought where exactly am i sending this? because a letter is a small traveler. it needs roads. it needs an address. it needs a door where someone will pause, open it slowly, and say… oh. but what happens when the letter knows where it wants to go, and the world does not? i wrote the first line anyway. then scratched it out. then wrote again. “i hope you are—” no. too ordinary. i tore the corner a little. not on purpose. or maybe on purpose. i don't know anymore. i started again. “do you ever…” and then i stopped. because that question suddenly felt dangerous. questions travel further than statements. they expect answers. and answers require someone on the other side. are you on the other side? see… this is the problem. i am already talking to you inside the letter. as if the paper knows where you live. as if the ink is confident it will find your hands somehow. but the envelope beside me is empty. no street. no city. not even a lie of a location. i laugh at that sometimes because what kind of person writes a letter without knowing where it will go? maybe the same kind of person who still believes certain words deserve to exist even if no one reads them. or maybe someone who is slowly losing an argument with silence. i kept writing. stopping. writing again. “today i saw something that reminded me of you...” no. scratch that. everything reminds me of you. that sentence would be unfair to the rest of the world. then i wrote your name. just once. very small. then crossed it out so violently the paper almost tore. i stared at the scratch marks for a while. tell me something. if a letter never reaches you… does it still count as a letter? or does it become something else… a confession maybe… or a ghost. i am asking seriously. because i keep imagining strange things. like what if i put this letter in an envelope anyway and write something ridiculous where the address should be. would the postman laugh? would it travel a little… just a little… before someone sends it back? or worse. what if it actually reaches you. what if one evening there is a knock on your door and someone hands you this thin, confused envelope. you turn it in your hands and say my name quietly. would you open it? or would you already know what it says. wait. i am doing that thing again. asking questions you cannot hear. this is the strange part of writing to someone who does not have an address anymore. the conversation keeps happening anyway. the paper listens. the pen listens. the room listens. only you... … see. even now i stopped. i wrote three words just now and erased them immediately. i am not even sure why. maybe because once they are written they start demanding honesty. and honesty is a dangerous animal. let me ask you something else. do you know that somewhere, right now, there exists a letter meant for you that can't find its way? that it is sitting on a table, beside someone who keeps folding it and unfolding it like a nervous habit? that every few minutes the writer looks at the empty space where the address should be and wonders if writing your name there would be a mistake… or a miracle. because i am starting to think something strange. maybe the real problem is not the address. maybe i know exactly where to send it. maybe the real question is... if i send it, and you read it, and you understand it, what happens after that? do letters like this end stories. or start them again. i don't know. i really don't. and the letter is still here. half written. half crying. waiting for me to decide whether the next line should be your address.

i didn’t know small things grow teeth. i say on an ordinary evening, folding yesterday into today, staring at a crack on the wall that wasn’t there before. i wonder how something so little learns to take up so much space. how a moment no bigger than a breath becomes the air in the entire room. perhaps it is not the thing itself, but the silence we wrap around it. like a seed forgotten in a pocket, it waits.. fed by pride, watered by assumptions, given sunlight by every memory we replay at 2 a.m. and then one day, it is no longer a seed. it is a forest between two people. i wonder... at what point could it have been plucked? when it was still soft, still unsure of its own existence? before it grew roots into the heart and vines around the tongue? we think healing is for storms, for earthquakes, for betrayals that shake the ground. but sometimes it is the unnoticed splinter that teaches the body how to ache. left unattended, it does not scream. it whispers. and whispers, repeated long enough, become beliefs: “i don’t matter.” “they don’t care.” “this is how it always is.” how strange that the smallest wound, if not cleaned, does not stay small. it gathers dust, then doubt, then distance. until two people stand on opposite sides of something that was once just a sentence. maybe it is simply turning toward the tiny bruise and saying “i see you”. before it decides to become a scar that changes the shape of everything.

the minute is longer than the hour. it sounds impossible at first. a mistake in measurement. a confusion of clocks. sixty seconds can't outweigh sixty minutes. time does not bend that way on paper. and yet it does, in the body. an hour can pass unnoticed. you can sit in a room, speak politely, finish a task, scroll without memory and when you look up, it is gone. the hour leaves without touching you. but a minute? a single, sharp minute? can stretch until it feels endless. the minute before results are announced. the minute after you send a message and wait. the minute when someone says, “we need to talk.” the minute in which a doctor pauses before speaking. that minute does not behave. it expands. it tightens around your ribs. it slows your breath. it makes your palms restless. it becomes larger than the hour that surrounds it. because time is not only measured by clocks. it is measured by attention. an hour of distraction is light. it slips by because you are not fully inside it. but a minute of fear, hope, grief or longing demands your complete presence. you are nowhere else. you are entirely within that moment. and so it grows. the minute before a confession feels longer than the evening that follows. the minute of silence after an argument feels heavier than the entire day. the minute of realization that something has ended or begun feels like a door closing slowly, even if it shuts in seconds. why does this happen? because intensity stretches time. because uncertainty slows it. because when the heart beats louder, seconds become deliberate. an hour is generous. it gives you space to forget yourself. a minute is precise. it forces you to face yourself. think about the last time you waited for something that mattered. did the hour before matter as much as the minute itself? probably not. the hour was preparation. the minute was impact. we live through many hours. we are changed by a few minutes. the minute you decide to leave. the minute you decide to stay. the minute you say yes. the minute you say no. these are small in number, but large in consequence. perhaps that is why the minute feels longer. because it carries weight. because it demands courage. because it asks for a choice. the hour allows you to drift. the minute asks you to stand still. and in that stillness, you feel everything. so when a minute feels unbearable, when it stretches and refuses to pass, it does not mean you are weak. it means you are present. it means something matters. it means your heart has stepped forward and is waiting for an answer. clocks will insist that a minute is short. but lived time tells a different story.

Yesterday morning, in a crowded bus that smelt of iron rails and warm dust, I witnessed something sacred. Two women sat beside each other. Strangers, perhaps. Or maybe just companions for that short distance between one stop and the next. One of them was speaking in a trembling voice. She spoke of her husband. Of illness. Of hospital visits. Of medicines that cost more than comfort. And as she spoke, her eyes kept filling like monsoon clouds that do not ask permission before raining. She said something that stayed with me. “Husband is the first one to serve… sabse badi pooja wahi hai, then God.” I kept looking out of the bus window, but my ears stayed with her. The world outside was rushing..shops opening, men bargaining, children running late for school but inside that small seat, love was sitting. She was not from our generation. Not someone who posts love quotes or sends heart emojis. She probably never said “I love you” to her husband. And yet, the way her voice cracked while speaking about him, the way she wiped her tears with the edge of her saree and still defended him as if he were a temple, there was no doubt. Love has always existed. It did not wait for our century to be invented. We think love is modern because we give it new names. We wrap it in messages and filters. But love has always been there, sitting in buses, standing in hospital lines, cooking food even when the body is tired, choosing someone again and again without announcing it. She was not praising a perfect man. She was holding onto a bond. There was devotion in her tone, but not weakness. It was strength. Love, I realised, is not loud. It does not argue with generations. It does not try to prove itself. It simply survives. In wrinkles. In trembling hands. In unpaid bills. In shared tea. In sickness. We, the younger ones, sometimes think love is fragile. That it breaks at small disagreements. That it must always feel sweet. But that woman taught me something without knowing. Love is not always sugar. Sometimes it is salt. Sometimes it is medicine. Sometimes it is sitting beside someone’s hospital bed and believing that caring for them is greater than any ritual. The bus reached my stop. I got down. The city swallowed me again. But somewhere between that woman’s tears and her faith, I felt something steady. Love does not belong to one generation. It does not age. It does not expire. It simply changes its clothes and continues walking beside us. And maybe, just maybe, the greatest worship has never been in temples alone. Maybe it has always been in the way we hold each other when life begins to fall apart.