Reading Between the Stripes

Today wars are raging across continents—from Europe to Asia to Africa—and there is confusion in every mind around “who is the victim.” Every conflict carries two sides—sometimes more. Between the labels of oppressor and oppressed, protector and predator, lies everyone’s own truth, built upon fear, vulnerability and greed.

That made me think about something far simpler.

The life of the humble zebra.

The zebra is one of nature’s most beautiful creations—graceful, patterned, peaceful. Yet, for generations, it has lived under constant threat from the lion, with no real strength to fight back. While the lions come in a pack, the zebras are unable to mobilize their own kind to defend themselves.

It is difficult not to feel for the zebra.

Why does it continue to endure, simply running for its life across endless plains, century after century?

If evolution is a fact, it is tempting to wonder why the zebra did not, metaphorically speaking, “invent a machine gun” to kill the lions.

Maybe it has adapted—but its progress lies in quiet resilience, in the rhythm of running, grazing, escaping, and living on. There is perhaps wisdom in this surrender to the natural order.

So the zebra lives within this reality—at peace where it can be, alert where it must be, grateful for another day.

Now, if you were the grass, enduring this endless aggression from the zebras day after day, how would you see the zebra and the lion?

Would the zebra be your monster—the one that devours you without pause—and the lion your protector, the one that keeps that hunger in check and allows you to grow back?

Think about it.

Gaman (我慢) — The Art of Holding Steady When Things Go Wrong

Gemini Generated Image

“Life has a way of testing us just when we think we’ve found steady ground.”

I was reminded of this on a short personal trip from Kolkata to Bangalore a few years back.

The work was done, the day had gone to plan, and I had timed my departure carefully—navigating the usual Bangalore traffic with just enough buffer to reach the airport without stress. It felt like one of those rare days where things were under control.

I tried to web check-in at the airport. It didn’t go through. I assumed it was just a routine glitch.

I moved to the counter. The staff tried to pull up the booking but failed.

Then the realization landed—quietly, but completely.

Same flight. Same date. Next month.

For a few minutes, the mind did what it always does—retrace steps, look for an error, hope for a workaround. But there wasn’t one. The only option was to step aside, wait, and book a new ticket for a late-night flight, eventually reaching home early the next morning.

It wasn’t a crisis, but it was enough to shake the illusion of control.

Perhaps that is how it often unfolds—nothing dramatic, just a quiet disruption that asks for more composure than reaction.

Challenges come uninvited — a setback, a disappointment, a moment that shakes our confidence. In such times, perseverance doesn’t always mean pushing harder; sometimes it means pausing, breathing, and choosing calm over chaos.

This is where the Japanese concept of Gaman (我慢) can guide us.

Gaman speaks of enduring the difficult with patience and dignity, holding oneself steady not through denial, but through quiet restraint.

When life gets hard, pause — but don’t quit. Give yourself space to feel, to think, to realign. The world often glorifies constant motion, but quiet resilience can be just as powerful.

You may not control every circumstance, but you can influence how you respond — with patience, humility, and grace. Keep moving forward, even if progress is slow or uncertain. Strength isn’t about pretending not to struggle; it is about continuing despite it, and knowing when to allow others to walk beside you.

Gaman does not ask us to be unshaken.
It asks us to remain steady, even when we are shaken.

Let My Star Be Your Guide

This is my attempt in response to Friday Writings #217: Your Message to the World 

We are mere travellers here,
drifting wherever life takes us.

No one will ever earn here
the right to dictate others’ paths.

We barely see the path here
clearly beyond the next bend.

Still, for fellow travelers here
I share my guiding North Star.

People spend their lives here

just fighting their own storms.

True, we cannot always help here,

never unleash our demons on them

If It’s Just a Body, Let My Words Linger

 

Image generated by Gemini

The moment you die, your identity becomes a body. Today I came across that thought, and it felt quietly humbling.

It took me back to a cold day in February, a few decades ago — to the day I rushed home from Delhi, the wind slicing through the airport glass, my mind racing faster than the wheels beneath me. My father had suffered a stroke. The flight was delayed by Delhi’s infamous fog, and by the time I reached home, he had already left this world.

Everyone waited for him to come home. I expected to see my father — strong, tired, gentle all at once. For years he had been a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle, a friend, a colleague — many things to many people. But when he arrived, no one said his name. No one called out a relation.

They said, “The body is here.”

In that instant, language stripped love of its titles. My father — a voice, a laugh, a presence that filled rooms — was now the body.

The body we idolize, critique, measure, compare and mold is, in many ways, deeply mechanical. It takes in breath, food, admiration, comfort — all the good things life offers — and when it releases, it releases what it no longer needs. Everything that leaves the body in its natural course — even through our skin, our eyes, our breath — is something unwanted.

And yet, there is one exception.

This very body has the ability to release something that is not waste, not toxin, not discard. Through the tongue, we can offer kindness, compassion, gentleness, truth. We can speak warmth into cold moments and remind someone they matter.

Perhaps that is how we outlive ourselves — not through the body that is eventually reduced to silence, but through the words it once carried.

If it’s just a body, let my words linger.

Wabi-Sabi (侘寂) — Learning to Keep What Time Has Touched

 Gemini Generated

For many of us, calendars, diaries, and yearbooks marked the arrival of a new year. The unused one from the year before rarely went to waste — it became a scrapbook of sorts. A place for doodles, secret codes, half-formed thoughts, phone numbers, and ideas that felt important in the moment.

Handwritten notes, smudged ink, messy, uneven lines. Imperfect — but deeply personal.

Over the years, I collected a lot of those and at some point, I decided it was time to clean up my shelves. It felt practical at the time.
Old diaries were discarded, with only scanned copies of selected pages treasured.

I feel sad about that decision now. I didn’t realise then how much of me lived in those pages — they were part of growing up, maturing together. Those clumsy lines on paper were akin to the veins of a tree, irregular in shape yet proof of years of existence.

I wasn’t aware of the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi then, but I felt its essence.

Wabi-Sabi invites us to see beauty in imperfection.
It encourages us to embrace the imperfect, the transient, and the incomplete — a cracked teacup, a worn-out pair of jeans.

It asks us to accept every crack, wrinkle, and stain not as flaws, but as quiet markers of authenticity — like a painter’s strokes on the artwork of being alive.

Suddenly, those old diaries felt dearer, and their absence created a sense of vacuum. Life is a mosaic, a collage formed by both perfect and imperfect everyday moments. Removing traces of imperfection does not make the image perfect; it makes it unauthentic — someone else’s life.

A chipped mug that brews the morning coffee — each chip carrying the memory of a day.
A weathered wooden table — scratched by years of family dinners, marked by countless cups of tea, holding a history no polish should erase.
An old photograph, creased at the edges — imperfectly preserved, yet holding a perfect memory.

While Kaizen teaches us to keep improving, step by step, Wabi-Sabi reminds us not to discard what time has already shaped.

One urges growth; the other, acceptance.
Perhaps a meaningful life needs both —
the courage to improve,
and the wisdom to keep what already bears our marks.

The 54th Post — Closing the Daily Chapter

 

I have been on a writing marathon for the past seven weeks — and today, on 30 November 2025, I’m closing this chapter with the 54th post of my series. It has been a ritual: sometimes demanding, often unexpected, but always real fun.

Over the previous 53 posts, I wrote about many things — curiosity, doubts, discoveries, ideas. I experimented with different styles: sometimes essay-like, sometimes personal, sometimes informative, sometimes conversational, and once I even tried a poem. I wandered between memories and questions, theories and observations, hopes and uncertainties, including a few thoughts on AI.

What I wrote:

Moments of wondering — small questions I had about life, culture, and the things I see and feel around me.

Thoughts on learning, on change, on growing.

Pieces of honesty — moments where I tried to share what I truly thought rather than what I “should” think.

A mix of genres — essays, musings, and snapshots of ideas. I pushed myself not to follow a fixed formula but to trust where my pen (or keyboard) led.

Once I shared an old Tagore song my daughter used to sing as a child, and once I tried my hands at a poem.

Some days the words came easily, like they had been waiting for me. On other days, I had to sit quietly and coax them out one by one.

What I learned — and how I changed:

The first lesson for me is that writing consistently taught me how to think more clearly. Even when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, the act of writing teased out hidden thoughts — ideas that were living inside me without my awareness.

I learned that motivation does not need external stimuli — I wrote whether or not anyone was reading, reacting, or appreciating the effort.

A big lesson was that you don’t need to write anything negative, hateful, or hurtful to keep going — even though social media often allows exactly that to thrive.

I also learned that discipline beats inspiration. Not every day was inspiring; some days I wrote simply because I promised myself I would. And often those pieces surprised me — with clarity, with emotion, with something I didn’t expect at the start.

And along the way, I connected with many like-minded bloggers — people I would never have met otherwise — you being one of them.

What this marathon means — and what are the take aways:

This series was a commitment: a way to prove to myself that I could keep going. A way to give shape to my inner questions, to trust my own voice, and to build a habit of creation and exploration.

If you read even one post and felt a spark — a thought, a question, a moment of recognition — then this marathon was worth it. And if you’re reading this now and thinking, “Maybe I could try that too,” then take this as a quiet invitation: start. Write something. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It may feel confusing. It may matter only to you. But keep going.

To you, dear reader — known or unknown — thank you for being here. I'm not going away; I’m simply closing this daily ritual. Keep thinking, keep questioning, keep writing your own story.

— End of the daily series, not the writing.

The Umbrella Relationship

 

It is said that the first thing a blind man does after regaining vision is to throw away the stick — he no longer needs what once guided and protected him. This may not be a common occurrence, but it reflects something we ourselves often experience: what I call the “umbrella relationship.”

Life is a bit strange — shall I say, even selfish at times. People often forget those who stood beside them during difficult moments. As soon as the rain stops, the umbrella starts to feel like a burden. Just a while ago, we were willing to give anything to have one.

Now, the stick and the umbrella are both non-living things — objects without awareness or emotion.

But when real beings like you or me experience similar treatment, it hurts. Deeply.

If we look at this metaphorically, we see this pattern in the way some children treat their parents. For years, parents have been the umbrella, shielding their children from the world’s challenges. But once the children become capable, some begin to see these very parents as a burden — an inconvenience.

And yet, the irony of life is that these same children later become the umbrella for their children — hoping, perhaps, that the next generation will treat them differently.

The same happens with the “ladder relationship”: some people will use you as a ladder to climb out of their struggles… and once they stand on solid ground, they no longer remember who lifted them up.

So what lesson does all this hold for us?

We must accept this one more fact of life: people will lean on you for support, protection, and survival, and some will forget your presence once the storm has passed.
Maybe you did the same once — I hope not.

But knowing this, we can choose better.
We must refuse to accept this as a norm and continue with this pattern. We can manage our expectations from others and, more importantly, act consciously. We can defeat the urge to ignore or abandon someone who stood beside us during our own time of need.

The Second Chance We Want

 

Sitting alone, contemplating how life has and is treating me, I remembered an old story. A person facing what we often call a “midlife crisis” went to a monk. He complained about all the decisions he felt he had failed to take, about how miserable his life had become. He wished he could wake up at 22 and start all over.

The perspective the monk offered made a huge impact on me.

He said:

"If you’re 41 and feeling sad that you can’t wake up as a 22-year-old again, try this instead."

Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Feel your lungs expand, feel the air entering your nose. Now, imagine — just for a few moments — that you are 85.

Feel the weight of those years — the slower body, the absence of people you once loved, the conversations you never had, the apologies you never made, the love you didn’t express enough. Let the regrets rise: the chances you didn’t take, the relationships you let fade, the moments you were too distracted to notice.

Sit with that version of yourself for a while — you will soon feel the 85-year-old you wishing for one more ordinary day at 41.

And then, in this little thought experiment, you go to sleep with all those feelings.

Then you wake up… you are 41 again.
Not older.
Not drained.
Not running out of time.

You suddenly, miraculously, have the next 44 years back in your hands- maybe little less, or little more.

So you ask yourself:

• What would I do differently?

• What would matter more?

• Whom would I call?

• What would I finally stop postponing?

The monk’s point was simple:

You may never be 22 again, but you can absolutely be someone your 85-year-old self would be grateful for.

We keep longing for a second chance — without realizing we already have one.

It just begins at 41, not at 22.

The Strength Lies in Accepting

 

Time is unforgiving. Life doesn’t let us rewind a moment, step back into an old version of ourselves, or undo the accident we never saw coming. It doesn’t offer a second attempt at the same crossroads — no matter how much remorse we carry or how deeply we wish we could fix what we once did wrong.

What it does offer — quietly, consistently — is the chance to learn. To reshape. To live each day a little better than the last.

I once heard an older musician speak about losing hearing in one ear early in his career. He said something I’ve never forgotten:
“I spent five years trying to get back to who I was before the accident. I wasted that time trying to heal the unhealable.”

For half a decade, he wasn’t fighting the condition — he was fighting the past, fighting the idea of the life he believed he was supposed to have. Only when he finally accepted that this particular loss was permanent did something shift. Acceptance didn’t restore his hearing, but it restored his direction.

He reworked his technique, retrained his sense of balance, and found a new creative rhythm that didn’t betray what he had lost but built upon what he still had. And from that place, a different kind of joy emerged.

There is a quiet strength in acknowledging a changed reality. Acceptance isn’t defeat. It isn’t surrender. It is simply recognising life’s randomness and moving with it instead of against it.

The ability to integrate the wound and still move through life — not perfectly, not painlessly, but purposefully — is its own form of victory.

In the end, the true virtue is this:
stop trying to return to the person you once were,
and start becoming the person you are meant to be next.

---

🔗 Read Reflect Rejoice