“A Candle in the Fog: One Act, A Thousand Lights”

“A Candle in the Fog: One Act, A Thousand Lights”

There are moments in life that come unannounced—subtle, almost whispering in their arrival—yet they leave behind ripples that widen across the pond of existence. In the grand theatre of this world, where we all play fleeting roles, it is often the unscripted gestures, the unrehearsed acts of kindness, that illuminate the darker corners of another’s journey. One such moment remains etched in the ink of my memory, soft yet unshakeable.

It was a monsoon-drenched evening in a small hill-town where the rain wrote verses against tin rooftops and fog played hide-and-seek with the valley. I had gone seeking solitude—my usual companion on tired days—and paused under the trembling shelter of an old tea stall. The aroma of chai mingled with the earthy perfume of petrichor, and the world, for a fleeting second, felt musical and melancholy all at once.

She was there—an elderly woman wrapped in a tattered shawl, eyes clouded not just with age but with a quiet longing. Her palm trembled as she reached out, not with words, but with silence. Around her were scattered half-worn books, some missing covers, others missing entire endings—like her, perhaps, abandoned by those who once found value in them.

Something stirred in me—not pity, not sympathy—but a shared solitude. I sat beside her, bought her a cup of hot tea, and listened—not to tales, but to the eloquent pauses between them. Her story was one of quiet survival: once a teacher, now forgotten by her students and time alike, selling used books to make ends meet.

I returned the next day with fresh notebooks, pens, and a warm woollen scarf. I bought the remainder of her books, though I didn’t need them. I simply wanted her to feel read again, to be seen as someone whose pages hadn’t yellowed, whose chapters were still worth revisiting.

Weeks later, she was gone. The tea stall owner told me she had moved—someone took her in, an old friend perhaps. I like to imagine she found a home where her stories are told again, where her presence isn’t just tolerated but treasured.

We often think of kindness as a grand display—a public act of generosity. But real kindness is often invisible, intimate, and unrecorded. It lies in the sacred act of recognising the divine in another’s suffering and answering it not with noise, but with the soft hush of compassion.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says, “He who has no attachments can really love others, for his love is pure and divine.” And in those quiet moments of giving, when one expects nothing in return, love finds its most authentic expression.

And so I write, in stanzas soft,
Of moments when the world went aloft—
When silent tears met hands unasked,
And kindness wore no gilded mask.

A scarf of wool, a cup of tea,
Can birth a bond as vast as sea.
No trumpets sound, no banners fly,
Just souls that meet and softly sigh.

To be a candle in someone’s mist,
A warmth that sorrow can’t resist—
Such acts don’t shout, they merely shine,
Unseen, unheard, yet so divine.

Kindness need not announce itself. It only needs to be.

The Unseen Me: A Portrait in Verse

The Unseen Me: A Portrait in Verse

I am not the shade of skin I wear,
Nor the silver in my autumn hair.
I am not the frame that time has bent,
But dreams I’ve chased and days well spent.

I am the hush of morning dew,
The echo of a thought once true.
A fading hymn at vesper’s call,
A silent oath, a whispered sprawl.

I’ve taught beneath a banyan wide,
With chalk in hand and heart in stride.
In dusty rooms where futures bloom,
I planted hope and swept out gloom.

I’ve watched the sun through glass panes fall,
While poems rose on classroom wall.
My voice has held both truth and tears,
Warmed by youth, and cooled by years.

You cannot see the scars I hide,
But feel them in the words I bide.
From childhood lanes to starlit bends,
I’ve walked alone and called them friends.

I am the rain that kissed dry land,
The tremble of a reaching hand.
The laughter shared on twilight’s edge,
A prayer once carved on window ledge.

A book once lost and found again,
With notes in margins inked by pain.
A letter never sent nor read,
But cherished still for what it said.

I’m pages dog-eared, worn but wise,
A pilgrim under changing skies.
I’ve searched for light in darkest fears,
And learnt the weight of silent years.

I’m music played on rusted strings,
Yet still it soars, yet still it sings.
The scent of old forgotten tunes,
The dance of dusk beneath full moons.

Though you may not behold my face,
You’ll find me in a quiet place —
Where thoughts are soft and spirits true,
And silence paints what sight can’t view.

For I am not a man you see,
But soul and story — endlessly.
So feel the breeze, not where I stand,
But who I’ve been, and what I am.

“Some people are unseen, not because they hide —
but because they dwell where depth resides.”

The Unseen Me: A Portrait Beyond the Mirror

“The Unseen Me: A Portrait Beyond the Mirror“

If I were to introduce myself to someone who could not see me, I would not begin with my height or the colour of my eyes, nor the way my hair has silvered with time. For the essence of a man lies not in the contours of his face but in the contours of his character, not in how he appears under sunlight but in how he endures through stormlight.

I am the sum of my thoughts and the scent of my memories — a traveller of time, quietly walking through seasons of laughter and solitude. You might think of me as a river, not always rushing, not always still — shaped by the valleys I have passed, carving meaning through the rocks of routine and uncertainty.

If you touch my words, you will feel a texture of sincerity, sometimes wrapped in silence, sometimes rippling with resonance. My voice holds echoes of dusty classrooms, of chalkboards and young dreams, of philosophical debates under banyan trees and long walks beneath the stars.

I am a seeker — not of riches or renown — but of understanding. I find poetry in the rising mist and philosophy in the fading light. I believe in the gentle rustle of leaves as much as in the heavy weight of truth. The world, to me, is not just what is visible, but what vibrates within — a spectrum of feelings, ideals, faiths, and fragile hopes.

I would tell you that my gait may be slower now, but my will is no less fierce. That though years have crept upon my shoulders, they haven’t dimmed the fire in my belly nor the curiosity in my eyes. I am aged like autumn — crinkled, golden, and contemplative. But within, there still beats the song of spring.

You may not see the colour of my skin, but you can sense the colour of my kindness in my words. You may not observe the lines etched on my face, but you may read the lines I have etched into time — in the lives I’ve touched, the lessons I’ve taught, and the stories I still carry.

If I were music, I would be a soft hymn at dusk. If I were a tree, I’d be one with low-hanging branches that invite the weary to rest. If I were a book, I’d be a dog-eared volume of musings, both weighty and whimsical, annotated by experience and edited by grace.

I carry with me the bruises of battles fought within, and the balm of blessings received without asking. I have walked alone in crowded halls and found company in quiet corners. I laugh easily, cry rarely, and forgive often. I know the fragrance of loss, the music of hope, and the silence of surrender.

I am the unseen me — neither masked nor marred by the eyes that cannot see, but naked in my truth, robed in reflection, and adorned in dreams.

So, if you wish to know me, close your eyes and feel — for I am not the image you behold, but the soul you sense. And that, dear friend, is the truest way I wish to be known.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

Echoes I Did Not Answer

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Echoes I Did Not Answer

There are traditions that arrive like the morning sun—inevitable, warm, and full of ancestral glow. Passed through gestures more than words, these customs once painted my childhood with hues of incense, chants, whispered prayers, and silent reverence. And yet, as time advanced like an impatient tide, many of these rituals were left resting like unopened letters at the threshold of modernity. This is a reflection on the traditions I did not carry forth—those tender inheritances that faded into memory, like fragrances long dispersed.

The Slow Vanishing of Ritual Time

I recall how days once revolved not around the clock but around the bell—a brass clang marking morning offerings, the lighting of a lamp at twilight, the aroma of sacred herbs dancing with the wind. There was a serenity in repetition, in the cyclic cadence of devotion. Now, in the hurried pace of contemporary life, where dawn is chased by deadlines, that sacred slowness has grown rare. The lamp sits polished, perhaps admired, but often unlit. Not out of disbelief, but due to a misplacement of priorities. Time, once a sacred ally, has become a hurried taskmaster.

Songs Unsung and Seasons Unmarked

There were songs sung not for entertainment but for alignment—with the seasons, the stars, the harvest, the rains. These tunes tethered one to the soil, the skies, and the stories of the land. I no longer remember their exact melodies, only that they soothed the tired heart. Festivals, once anticipated with weeks of preparation, now arrive as mere calendar entries—reminders, not revelations.

There was a rhythm to the seasons, and with it, a harmony of action—fasting not for weight loss but for inner clarity, abstaining not as denial but as an honouring of cycles. Those meanings now lie like ancient scripts unread, covered by the dust of convenience.

The Language of Reverence

There was once a language of greeting where hands met in humble prayer, not just in gesture but in spirit. Today, communication is abundant, but connection feels thin. Reverence, once the bedrock of every interaction—with people, trees, animals, and gods—has turned performative, or worse, forgotten. The bow of the head, the silence before a meal, the gratitude before a journey—all were quiet rituals of belonging. Now, they flicker like candles in the wind of modernity.

Philosophy Now Muted

I was raised amidst metaphors, where rivers were goddesses and trees were sages. Philosophy flowed not from books but from everyday observations. A fallen leaf, a crow’s call, the steady flame—they all meant something. The world was a text to be interpreted with the heart. But slowly, that instinct to philosophise has been shelved, replaced by facts and figures, analytics and outcomes.

In this forgetting, something more than customs was lost—perhaps the soul’s compass, which once pointed not north, but inward.

Yet, Not All is Lost

To admit these absences is not to dismiss the past, nor to grieve it beyond repair. The spirit of tradition, I believe, is less about duplication and more about essence. Though the outer forms have faded, the inner yearning for meaning remains. I may not perform the exact rituals of old, but I seek their spirit in quiet meditations, in the turn of pages from wisdom texts, in the silent acknowledgement of dawn’s beauty or dusk’s mystery.

Perhaps traditions, like rivers, change their course yet remain rivers. Perhaps what I lost was not the entire ocean, but the shore I once stood on.

A Whisper to the Ancients

To those whose footsteps I no longer exactly follow: I have not forgotten you. I carry you, not in practice, but in pulse. I may not recite the same hymns, but I look at the stars with the same awe. I may not light the same lamp, but I yearn for the same light.

And so, while some echoes have gone unanswered, I still listen. I listen deeply.

The lamp may sleep, the chant grow faint,
The sacred thread now loose and quaint,
Yet in my heart the fire stays bright,
A quiet flame in modern night

A Mirror to My Soul: The Man Behind the Silence”

“A Mirror to My Soul: The Man Behind the Silence”

How does one describe the self — a creature of paradoxes, memories, ambitions, and regrets — without drifting into either pride or pity? I am neither a hero cast in bronze nor a victim trapped in a tale of sorrow. I am but a ripple in the vast ocean of time, trying to leave behind a gentle shimmer before being absorbed into the depths once again.

I see myself not through accolades or possessions but through what stirs quietly within. If I were to sketch myself in words, I’d begin with this — I am a seeker. A seeker of meaning in mundane moments, of music in silence, of light in the crevices where shadows often dwell. I carry a lantern lit by old books, fading hymns, mountain winds, and the kind eyes of strangers who once helped me find my way.

In a world that prizes noise and spectacle, I often find solace in solitude. I have learnt the language of trees, the whisper of dusk, and the soft conversations between clouds. They do not demand, they only remind — that life is fleeting, fragile, and yet infinitely full.

Philosophically, I believe that every life is an unfinished poem — and mine has been inked with verses of perseverance, commas of contemplation, and ellipses of dreams deferred but never abandoned. I am no sage, but I have walked barefoot on the edges of both success and sorrow, learning from each bruise and blossom.

There lies within me an old clock — it ticks not to keep time, but to honour it. I revere discipline not as a burden, but as a beautiful rhythm that gives form to the formless hours of the day. Yet I never bind myself to a rigid script — I allow spontaneity to pour in like unexpected rain over a sun-drenched garden.

Emotionally, I carry a tender heart clothed in quiet strength. I do not wear it on my sleeve, but let it guide me like a compass in the fog. I have been broken — gently and cruelly, sometimes by fate, sometimes by my own doing — but I rise, again and again, like the moon after a night of storm.

In the company of people, I listen more than I speak, not because I lack words but because I respect the sanctity of theirs. I value authenticity — it is the rarest perfume in today’s market of masks. I am often told that I live in the past, but perhaps that is where I learnt the value of the present — by understanding what it means to lose a moment forever.

I am a confluence — of reason and rebellion, of science and spirit, of laughter and longing. I find joy in a well-brewed cup of tea, in the chirp of an unseen bird, in a page turned at the right time. To some, these may seem trivial; to me, they are threads in the grand tapestry of a meaningful life.

I do not chase greatness. I chase grace.
I do not seek applause. I seek alignment.
I do not count followers. I count blessings.

And if someone were to ask me — “Who are you really?” — I would simply say:

“I am a river,
Sometimes raging, sometimes still.
I carve my path, not to conquer —
But to feel, to flow, to fulfil.”

Let that be my story. Let that be enough!

“ A Lost Thunder: If I Could Bring Back One Dinosaur”

“ A Lost Thunder: If I Could Bring Back One Dinosaur”

In the hush of twilight, when dreams wander across the veil of time, I often wonder—what if history could whisper louder? What if one majestic creature, long erased by fate, could tread again upon this Earth?

Were I granted the solemn magic to summon one dinosaur from the crypts of the Mesozoic age, I would choose not the fiercest, nor the swiftest, nor the most outlandish—but the Brachiosaurus, the gentle colossus of the Jurassic era.

With its elongated neck stretching like an ode to the heavens, and its lumbering grace casting shadows that kissed the stars, the Brachiosaurus was less a beast and more a moving monument of time. A living tower of tranquillity. In the thickets of primeval forests, it swayed like a slow-moving prayer, munching leaves with the peace of a monk in meditation.

Why this creature, you may ask?

Because the world, as it stands, is not in want of more aggression or terror. We have forged weapons more fearsome than the Tyrannosaurus rex. Our skies, once blue and benevolent, now bear witness to storms of our own making. What we lack, truly, is wonder—grandeur without arrogance, strength without fury, size without destruction.

The Brachiosaurus, in my eyes, is an emblem of that sublime paradox. A creature so immense, yet so serene. In its very existence lies a reminder that power need not roar. Sometimes, it simply breathes.

Philosophers through the ages have marvelled at the concept of “magnificence in moderation.” Aristotle saw it as a virtue—sadness in proportion, purpose, and perspective. The Brachiosaurus, then, becomes a symbol of this lost virtue: an unhurried titan that never trampled the world, but walked upon it with mindful steps. In bringing it back, we might learn again to walk gently upon the Earth.

Imagine standing in a sun-dappled glade at dawn, the mist curling like silver smoke around your ankles, and then—out of the forest—comes this giant of a bygone dream. It does not charge. It does not threaten. It pauses, it breathes, and then it continues its timeless march as though it were never extinct.

To see such a creature would be to confront the soul of time itself.

It would be a hymn to evolution, a living verse of poetry that predates language. The rustle of its movement would be like the turning of ancient pages—the epic of existence murmured again into the ears of mankind.

Would we learn from it? Or would we cage it, brand it, and turn it into spectacle?

That, dear reader, is a question not for the dinosaur, but for us.

A Few Final Verses to End This Muse:

Bring me the beast who towers above,
Yet stirs no fear, but silent love.
Not claw, nor fang, nor crimson trail
But leaves and skies within its tale.

A soul from yore, with eyes so wide,
A titan with no need for pride.
May we, like it, learn grace anew—
To walk the Earth with reverence is true.

In the end, it’s not just the creature we bring back, but the conscience we must awaken. Let the Brachiosaurus return—not as a marvel of science alone—but as a moral of existence.

A soft thunder from a forgotten world, reminding us: greatness lies not in ruling the world, but in belonging to it!

Two Tickets, One Dream: A Journey from Fjords to Fables”

“Two Tickets, One Dream: A Journey from Fjords to Fables”

What if, by a stroke of serendipity, life handed me not a cheque, not a crown, but two free plane tickets—slender paper wings promising boundless skies? I would not squander the chance to dance with destiny. I would board one flight that sails through northern light and another that lands softly amid candlelit cafés—my heart split between Norway and Paris, the austere and the amorous, the sublime and the sentimental.

Norway: Whispers of the Fjord

Norway is no ordinary escape—it is a reverent pilgrimage into nature’s ancient diary. With soaring fjords that speak in echoes, pine-cloaked mountains wrapped in mists, and waters that shimmer like liquid sapphires, Norway is poetry carved in stone and sky.

I would begin in Bergen, nestled like a secret between sea and slope. There, the wooden wharf houses of Bryggen still whisper Norse sagas—of sailors who chased horizons and of dreamers who scribbled stardust in the margins of history. The North Sea breeze would ruffle my thoughts like the fingers of forgotten gods.

I would board a ferry through Geirangerfjord, that haunting corridor of stillness, where waterfalls weep like harps and every turn is an invocation. Here, I’d let the silence baptise me. I’d gaze at the Northern Lights from Tromsø, letting those celestial ribbons write poems in the winter sky.

Norway reminds the soul to be humble. It tells us that the Earth is older than all our ambitions, and that beauty, when untouched, speaks louder than progress.

Paris: The City of Timeless Murmurs

And then—Paris. If Norway is a hymn to solitude, Paris is a sonnet whispered to the soul.

The City of Light is not just a place on the map—it is a mood, a memory, a melody. I would walk along the Seine, under the twilight hues that Monet once bled into canvas. Bookstalls, lovers, violinists, and flâneurs would keep me company, all wrapped in the faded scent of centuries.

I’d sit at a corner café in Montmartre, where once Picasso sketched dreams and Edith Piaf sang of aching hearts. I’d sip slow coffee and pen my own verses, as accordion music drifted through the Parisian hush. Even the raindrops here are stylish, landing on cobblestones with a poetic sigh.

To stand beneath the Eiffel Tower at night is not merely to witness architecture, but to feel what it’s like when steel falls in love with starlight. There is romance in the air—not only of lovers, but of life itself.

Paris is a reminder that passion matters, that art heals, and that time is best spent lingering.

One Soul, Two Worlds

These two destinations—so different, yet so profound—would pull my heart like twin moons. Norway would teach me the sacredness of silence, the thunderous calm of glaciers and fjords. Paris would seduce me with its candle-lit chaos, its art and its audacity to live fully.

If given two free tickets, I would not just travel—I would transcend. I would embrace both stillness and song, both the voice of the wild and the whisper of the city.

Two wings gifted, I rise to roam,
From icy cliffs to café’s dome.
One hand clasps snow, one clutches wine,
One foot on moss, one toe in brine.

In Norway’s hush, I find my grace,
In Paris’ kiss, my soul’s embrace.
Two lands, one love, no need to choose—
I walk the sky in wanderer’s shoes.

In the end, we don’t just travel to see the world. We travel to meet ourselves. And between Norway’s introspection and Paris’ seduction, I would find a version of myself more whole, more awakened, and more grateful than ever before.