I came to Langkawi expecting to see another beautiful place. I found that the sea was beautiful. So was the Rainforest, so were the beaches.
The white beaches beckonThe Rainforest chalets
But after a while, I stopped looking at the beauty and began noticing something else.
The pace. The trees did not seem to be in a hurry to grow. The waves did not seem anxious about reaching the shore. The clouds moved without consulting a clock. Even the boats seemed to understand that there was nowhere more important to be.
And as I watched, I wondered when we had forgotten this simple rhythm. We hurry to work. Hurry to meetings. Hurry to finish. Hurry to achieve. And then, having spent years rushing towards the future, we discover that the present has quietly passed us by.
Perhaps the problem is not that we don’t have enough time. Perhaps we have forgotten how to inhabit the time we have. Standing by the sea, I found myself asking: What if slowing down is not falling behind? What if it is actually a way of moving forward—with greater awareness of where we are going?
Perhaps we don’t always need another destination. Sometimes we simply need to stop long enough to notice the journey.
….notice the journey
I closed my notebook and watched the waves return to the shore. They had been doing it for thousands of years. Unhurried. Unconcerned. And somehow, always on time.
I spent the morning watching the animals move across the Kenyan savannah. There were wildebeest everywhere. Zebras moved among them almost casually. An elephant and its cub stood beneath a tree. In the distance, the landscape seemed to stretch endlessly, without walls, roads or buildings to interrupt it. For a while, I simply watched.
A space with no boundaries
There was something strangely humbling about seeing so many creatures occupy the same landscape without any apparent need to possess it. They did not own the land. They did not draw boundaries across it. They did not put up signs announcing that a particular piece of earth belonged to them. They simply lived there.
The Savannah co-existence
And then a thought occurred to me. What if we have misunderstood our place in the world?
For centuries, we have measured human progress by our ability to control nature. We cut down forests and called it development. We dammed rivers and called it progress. We covered open land with concrete and called it urbanisation. We moved mountains, redirected water, altered landscapes and exterminated species after species, making them disappear. And while doing so, we often congratulated ourselves on our ingenuity and intelligence.
The great migration through Mara
But somewhere along the way, we perhaps began to confuse our ability to control something with the right to own it. The savannah seemed to offer me a different philosophy. The animals did not appear to be conquering the land. They were part of it. The elephant did not need to dominate the tree beneath which it stood. The zebra did not need to fence off its patch of grass. The wildebeest did not need a title deed to the earth beneath its feet. They belonged to the landscape without claiming it. Perhaps that is what we have forgotten. We speak endlessly about what we will leave behind. Be it buildings, businesses, fortunes, roads or institutions. We would strive to leave our names on plaques and our photographs on walls. But perhaps there is another kind of legacy…….
The Zebra did not need to fence off its grass….
What we choose not to destroy. The forest we would leave standing. The river and the waterbody we would allow to remain clean. The animal(s) whose habitat we would protect. The open space we chose not to convert into concrete. The silence we did not fill.
The silence we did not fill….
Standing there in Kenya, I began to wonder whether civilisation should really be measured by how much of nature we can bend to our will. Or how much of nature we chose to leave as it is. Perhaps the more difficult measure is how much power we possess—and how much restraint we exercise. Because restraint requires something that conquest does not. It requires us to recognise that we are not the center of everything. The realisation that the earth existed before us, the wild existed before our cities, our borders and our ambitions. And, if we are wise enough, much of it will continue to exist after we are gone.
Will this exist after we are gone?
Perhaps we are not the owners of this world after all. Perhaps we are merely its temporary custodians. We arrived without asking permission. We will leave without taking anything with us. Between those two moments lies the brief privilege of being of who we are and our presence here.
We remain privileged to have been here…….
And so I find myself asking a different question. Not simply, what will we build while we are here? But, what will remain because we were here? I closed my notebook. The animals continued moving across the savannah. They had not heard my question. Perhaps they did not need to. They seemed to know the answer already.
….. a city allows danger to become normal until tragedy makes it visible.
August 2026
The fire in the Free School street building which housed hotels, offices and homes may have started with a short circuit. But tragedies of this magnitude are rarely caused by a single spark. Nine people died in a building where hotels, offices and homes had somehow learnt to coexist within a maze of cramped spaces, narrow passages and questions about fire safety.
Times Of India report
I kept wondering: who allowed this to become normal? Perhaps that is the more uncomfortable question. A city does not become unsafe in one day. It becomes unsafe one ignored violation at a time. One certificate not checked. One inspection postponed. One illegal alteration overlooked. One warning that nobody thought was urgent. And then, one night, the building catches fire.
We will now demand accountability. There will be investigations, committees, audits and perhaps arrests. All these are surely necessary. But does governance have to begin only after people die? The real test of a city is not how efficiently it rescues people from a burning building. It is whether it had the courage to prevent that building from becoming a death trap in the first place.
As I folded the newspaper, I wondered whether we have become too accustomed to calling preventable tragedies accidents. Perhaps the most important responsibility of governance is not to manage disasters better. It is to make fewer disasters possible.
…. we do not really know the people who live beside us?
August 2026
When I was a child, every neighbourhood had an unofficial security system. It was called knowing one another. Your mother knew who lived next door. The grocer knew whose son had returned from college. The postman knew which house had a new baby. The stranger was noticed because everyone else was familiar.
Today we have CCTV cameras, biometric gates, visitor apps, facial recognition and digital identities. Yet we often do not know the person who shares the lift with us.
The newspapers tell us that a young man, described by neighbours as polite and ordinary, is now accused of living a different life of a terrorist behind an ordinary face. If the allegations are proven true, it is a chilling reminder that the greatest disguises are no longer masks. They are routines. Terrorism succeeds long before any explosion. It succeeds the day suspicion replaces trust, when every unfamiliar face begins to look dangerous, and every ordinary neighbour becomes a question mark.
That is precisely why a civilised society must refuse both complacency and paranoia. Security agencies must remain vigilant. Citizens must remain alert. But neither should surrender the humanity that allows communities to exist.
As I folded the newspaper, I wondered whether the greatest security failure of our times is not merely that dangerous people can hide among ordinary citizens. It is that modern life has quietly taught ordinary citizens to live among one another without ever truly knowing those around us. Perhaps the strongest wall against terror is not built of concrete or surveillance. Perhaps it begins when a society rediscovers the forgotten art of being a community.
We often admire people’s discipline, without ever seeing the structures that quietly support it.
Some months back, during my morning walks, I started noticing an elderly gentleman doing his exercises in the central garden of our residential complex.
He was there every day, almost at the same time and doing the same routine. For many mornings, I simply admired his discipline from a distance but one day, curiosity got the better of me. I wished him ‘Good Morning’ and soon we were sitting on a nearby bench, I remarked, “I see that you have incredible willpower.”
At that, he laughed, “That’s what everyone thinks. But it isn’t really true. Not really.”
As I looked at him, puzzled, he pointed towards his wristwatch, “My alarm rings at five-thirty.”
“So does mine,” I smiled.
He continued, “My walking shoes are beside the bed every night. My exercise clothes are laid out before I go to sleep. My doctor expects to see my blood sugar readings every month. And my granddaughter has made me promise that I’ll be healthy enough to dance at her wedding.”
He paused, “Now tell me… where exactly does willpower come into the story?”
For a few moments, I didn’t have an answer. I seemed to have mistaken discipline for determination. What I was really seeing was structure.
As we got up to walk back to our respective towers, he said something that has stayed with me ever since, “Most people wait to feel motivated. I prefer to prepare my environment.”
That single sentence shifted my perspective. How often do we rely on willpower alone? We promise ourselves we’ll read more, exercise regularly, spend less time on our phones, learn a new skill. In my case, it is even, write that book. In your case, it might be to start that business.
Then, when our enthusiasm fades, we conclude that we lack discipline. Perhaps the problem isn’t our commitment. Perhaps, it’s our architecture. It became increasingly clear to me that our lives are already full of structures. Some quietly support the future we want. Others quietly support the habits we’re trying to leave behind.
Success is rarely built on one heroic act of determination. More often, it is built on dozens of small decisions made long before the moment of action arrives.
Before we parted, I thanked the gentleman for the conversation. He smiled and said, “People spend too much time trying to become stronger. They spend too little time making the path easier.”
As I walked home, I realised that remarkable lives are not held together by extraordinary willpower. They are held together by ordinary structures, repeated with quiet consistency. Perhaps that explains why success often looks effortless from a distance.
We see the destination.We applaud the discipline.But we rarely notice the invisible architecture that made the journey possible. And perhaps that’s the first structure worth building.
……when a generation no longer asks for privilege, but for credibility.
July 2026
A few mornings back I learnt that an entire movement has chosen to call itself the ‘Cockroach Janta Party’. I smiled. Not because the name is amusing. But because history has always had an odd habit of allowing the insulted to reclaim the insult. (I recall many years back, the Chai-wallah epithet had provided a positive momentum to Prime Minister Modi’s persona)
There was a time when young people marched carrying flags. Today they march carrying memes. Yesterday’s slogans have become today’s hashtags.
Yet beneath the humour, I hear something painfully familiar. It is not anger; it is disappointment.
Every generation believes the next examination will open the next door. When that examination itself becomes the subject of doubt, it is not merely a paper that leaks. Trust does.
The young are often accused of being impatient. Perhaps they are. But there are few things more dangerous than asking an entire generation to wait while uncertainty becomes a way of life.
Governments may negotiate. Oppositions may protest. Television studios will certainly debate. But none of them can afford to overlook the quiet question echoing through millions of homes, ‘If merit itself begins to look negotiable, what exactly are young people expected to believe in?’
As I folded the newspaper, I realised that the greatest examination before our nation is no longer the one written by students. It is the one our institutions are writing every day. And unlike the students, they will not be judged by the answers they give. They will be judged by the trust they restore.
A couple of weeks ago, over an evening drink at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (CCFC), a friend casually mentioned Kurseong. The name somehow lingered long after the conversation had moved on. Ever since my ankle surgery earlier this year, I had been dreaming of escaping to a quiet corner wrapped in green, where the loudest sound would be birdsong and the fastest thing in sight would be drifting clouds. I scarcely had to drop hints to my wife Sanchita, she was more than ready and Kurseong quickly graduated from dream to destination.
Four nights at the Nirvana Retreat ( it advertises itself as the place where time stands still) were booked, followed by the to-and-fro flights to Bagdogra. The monsoon tossed our aircraft around just enough to remind us who was really in charge, but we landed safely and were soon winding our way up the hills. Every bend seemed to reveal another postcard—the tea gardens, little hillside homes, and forests wearing a soft veil of mist.
The long and winding road…..
Our balcony overlooked towering pine trees standing like silent soldiers in green-grey uniforms, their pointed helmets disappearing into drifting clouds. Kolkata, with its humidity, traffic and relentless pace, already felt like another country. There was no television worth watching here. Nature had taken over the programming.
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The hills invited long walks, but wisdom prevailed over enthusiasm. Recovering knees have a language of their own and mine spoke with remarkable clarity. So, instead of trying to conquer the hills, we surrendered to them. We embraced a different adventure—the increasingly rare luxury of doing very little, and doing it without feeling guilty.
Each morning began with meditation on the balcony as the mist slowly swallowed the pines before releasing them again, almost playfully. Unknown birds held conversations in a language neither of us understood, yet somehow it all made perfect sense. Then came our familiar ritual: the kettle on, two cups of fragrant Darjeeling tea, and unhurried conversations that needed no destination. We discovered that silence, shared with someone you have known for years, can sometimes be more eloquent than words.
Breakfast was delightfully confused—hot puris and sabzi giving way to eggs sunny side up, toast, sausages and the incomparable Makaibari tea. The ever-smiling staff seemed personally invested in ensuring that no guest left the dining room even remotely hungry. Resistance, we soon discovered, was entirely futile.
We faithfully visited Dow Hill School on behalf of a friend who had boarded there during his childhood, only to be politely prevented from entering those hallowed precincts by an immovable security guard. Some memories, it would seem, are best revisited through stories rather than school gates.
Dow Hill school
The mist also conspired against us at Eagle’s Crag and the Chimney, ensuring that the famous panoramic views remained a matter of imagination. Yet the ancient pine forests more than compensated. Walking beneath those towering trees, lovingly planted by the British generations ago, one could not help but marvel at how some acts of planting outlive the people who planted them.
Kurseong Chimney
A Pine Forest of Kurseong
A description of Kurseong would be incomplete without mentioning the historic Hill Cart Road—the town’s bustling lifeline where shops, cafés and homes jostle for space, and where the iconic Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train track (did not see the train passing through when we were there) meanders through the streets with unhurried confidence. As pedestrians and vehicles patiently made their way, it felt like watching history politely negotiate with the present.
The highlight for me, however, was the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Museum. His letters, photographs and personal artefacts quietly brought history to life, reminding us that extraordinary lives are often built upon ordinary moments of conviction and courage.
Netaji Subhas Bose’s address as President of Congress Party
We returned with few spectacular photographs but something far more valuable—a reminder that the finest journeys are not always about seeing more. Sometimes they are about slowing down enough to see ourselves again. In a world forever urging us to move faster, Kurseong gently whispered a different lesson—that there is quiet wisdom in standing still.
As I have gone through life , I have found some folks proudly wearing their age ( and the wisdom that flows from that) like a badge. And others, using a curious phrase ( which incidentally became fashionable) : “Age is just a number.”
Perhaps. But I have often wondered why some people feel compelled to repeat it so often. The calendar is not the enemy. The years do not diminish us. They simply tell a story.
Yet many of us seem desperate to negotiate with time. We shave a few ( and sometimes a little more!) years off our age, boast of being sixty when we are actually seventy, or cling fiercely to an image of ourselves that belonged to another decade. As we try to convince ourselves and others.
Why?
Maybe because age reminds us of something we would rather not confront. That the world is passing us by and we fear missing out. That life is finite. That some doors have closed. That our bodies have their own timetable. That one day we will have to hand over the baton to others.
The strange thing is that wisdom was never meant to compete with youth. A banyan tree does not apologize for not being a sapling. A river does not pretend to be a mountain stream. Both possess a different kind of beauty.
Perhaps maturity begins when we stop treating age as an accusation and start treating it as an achievement. After all, growing old is not a failure. It is a privilege denied to many.
The question is not whether age is just a number. The question is whether we have learned to wear our years with grace.
A New Beginning 