In my Quiet

There are moments in life when we ask difficult questions: Why did this happen to me? Was it my karma? Was it fate? Could I have prevented it? When we face loss, failure, separation, disappointment or an unexpected turn in life, we naturally search for reasons. Sometimes we find an answer; sometimes we do not. Ancient Indian thought gives us three powerful ideas through which we can think about such situations: karma, daiva or fate and satya (truth). Karma reminds us that our actions have consequences. Some consequences are immediate, while others may appear much later. But we cannot always know exactly why something has happened to us. Was it because of our own actions? Someone else's actions? Circumstances beyond anyone's control? Or something connected with the past that we cannot understand? Perhaps one of the most difficult forms of wisdom is learning to live with questions that have no clear answers. Instead of remaining trapped in “Why did this happen?”, we can ask a mor...

  Roots Don't Retire: You were Ours Before You were the World's An Open Letter from Parents to Their Daughter You came into our lives and everything shifted. The world became both more beautiful and more terrifying because suddenly, we had something so precious that the very thought of losing you to anything, to anyone, to even a single moment of pain, made our hearts clench in a way we never knew hearts could. You were not just a baby. You were the baby. Our baby. The one who turned our ordinary house into a home that echoed with laughter we didn't know we were capable of. And we raised you, not as a burden, not as a responsibility to be handed off, not as someone else's future property, but as ours. Fully, completely, irreversibly ours. We gave you education, not just so you could earn a living, but so you could stand on your own two feet and look the world in the eye without flinching. We gave you values, not so you could silently endure whatever life threw at ...

Look around you today. Everyone is running. Students are running towards marks. Young men and women are running towards promotions, salaries, designations and LinkedIn connections. There is nothing wrong with ambition. It is good. It is necessary. But somewhere in all this running, we have quietly dropped something precious, something we did not even notice we had lost. We dropped the simple idea that a full life includes more than a full inbox. That a rich life is not just a financially rich life. That the greatest moments a human being can experience are not in a boardroom, rather they are in a kitchen, a courtyard, a cradle. And this is exactly what a very old, very beautiful story has been trying to tell us for thousands of years. The Bhagwat Purana, particularly the tenth chapter is the story of Krishna's childhood. And what a childhood it is. It is not a tale of gods and thunder and battles in the sky. It is something far more powerful. It is the story of a little boy who ste...

We're wounded. All of us, in some way. We carry these invisible injuries that don't show up on ultrasounds but still ache when the pressure is just right. Someone hurt us. Maybe recently. Maybe years ago. Maybe it's still happening. But we don't have to live there, in that wound, forever. Pain isn't our enemy, even though it feels that way. It's a messenger knocking at the door, urgent and insistent, trying to deliver something important. The question isn't whether we're in pain, we already know we are. The question is: have we got the message yet? What is the pain trying to tell us? That we matter and someone treated us like we don't. That we have boundaries and someone crossed them. That we deserve gentleness and someone gave us cruelty instead. That we need safety and someone made us feel afraid. We need to listen to it. Not forever. Just long enough to understand what it's saying. Then let it pass. Let it move through us like weather, like se...

In educational institutions, celebrations and events are an important part of student life. They provide opportunities for creativity, social bonding and joy. Yet there is always a balance to be struck between fun and maintaining the values that give an institution its character. How do teachers ensure that celebrations are lively and enjoyable without crossing the line into indecent or disrespectful territory? Being a cultural guardian is about helping students navigate that balance. It is not about discouraging enjoyment or creativity. Rather, it is about fostering an environment where joy, expression and engagement coexist with respect, dignity and thoughtfulness. Guardianship is the quiet work of preserving an atmosphere in which students can grow socially, ethically and intellectually. There are teachers who, when asked to exercise caution, may respond with enthusiasm rather than restraint. When the institutional head suggests that college parties maintain a sense of dignity, it m...

There is something about Dwarka that words can never quite capture. The first glimpse of the temple rising above the restless Arabian Sea feels like a conversation between time and eternity. The air itself carries a strange stillness. Salt, incense, and something invisible that touches you before you realize it. Standing there, I felt as if Krishna’s presence was not a memory of mythology but a living vibration that hummed in the wind and waves. The word "manthan", the churning has always fascinated me. We usually hear it in stories of gods and oceans, of poison and nectar, but that day, I understood that the real churning happens within us. As I stood by the sea, something deep inside began to stir. Every sound of the conch, every rhythm of the waves seemed to turn an invisible wheel within me. It wasn’t comfortable; it was unsettling, like being stripped of all pretense. I couldn’t tell if I was breaking apart or coming together. Perhaps both. Perhaps that’s what awakening ...