Tag: Travel

snow, silence & me

Posted on by Ajmal

There is a particular kind of silence that only exists near cold water. Not the absence of sound exactly, but something heavier than that. A silence with weight to it, with presence. I felt it standing at the edge of a frozen lake in Montenegro, snow coming down slow and purposeless around me, the mountains ahead half-swallowed by cloud, the water so still it looked like it had given up on being water and decided to become something more permanent.

I stood there for a long time. Longer than made practical sense.

There was nothing to do there. No insight to extract, no photo that would actually capture it, no thought worth interrupting it with. Just the snow landing on the surface of the lake and disappearing. Landing and disappearing. I watched that for a while and felt something in me go quiet in a way that my ordinary life rarely allows.

It was the kind of place that asks something of you without speaking.

I’d been reading, around that time, a 12th century Persian poem called The Conference of the Birds, by Farid ud-Din Attar. A long, strange, devastating poem about a group of birds who set out on a journey to find their king, a mythical bird called the Simorgh, who lives beyond seven valleys, each one more annihilating than the last. Valley of the Quest. Valley of Love. Valley of Knowledge. Valley of Detachment. Valley of Unity. Valley of Bewilderment. Valley of Poverty and Nothingness. Most of the birds don’t make it. They find reasons to turn back in every valley. The heat is too much. They are too attached to something they left behind. They cannot bear what the next valley requires them to give up.

Only thirty birds reach the end.

And what they find there, I won’t say. But it undid me quietly, the way only true things do.

Standing at Durmitor, in that snow, I thought about those birds without meaning to. Because that landscape felt exactly like one of those valleys. Not the terrifying kind. The bewildering kind. The one where the path disappears not because something went wrong but because this particular stretch of the journey isn’t meant to be walked with a map. You’re meant to walk it uncertain, cold, watching snow fall into still water, not knowing what it means and slowly making peace with not knowing.

I think most of us are somewhere in those valleys right now. Not at the beginning where the excitement of setting out still carries you. Not at the end. Somewhere in the difficult middle, where you’ve given up enough that going back feels dishonest, but you haven’t arrived at anything yet that justifies what you’ve given up. That is an uncomfortable place to live. And yet almost everyone I know is living in it in some form.

The birds in Attar’s poem keep asking: how much further? And the answer, always, is that the question itself is the problem. The ones who make it are not the ones who suffer less. They’re the ones who eventually stop measuring the distance.

I’m not sure I know how to stop measuring the distance. I measure constantly. Progress, meaning, arrival, whether any of it is going somewhere. I stand at the edge of something vast and quiet and beautiful and part of me is still somewhere else, still calculating.

But for a few minutes that morning in Montenegro, in the snow, I wasn’t.

The cloud was sitting so low on the mountain that the treeline just dissolved into grey halfway up, and beyond that was nothing you could name. Just weather and altitude and the suggestion of something enormous behind it all. There was a small cabin across the lake, barely visible, a thin dark shape against all that white. Someone built that there. Someone chose to be that close to that much silence and that much wild.

I thought about what it takes to choose that. To build your life that close to the unresolvable.

Maybe that’s what the poem is really about. Not the destination. Not the Simorgh, not the revelation at the end. But the slow, difficult, deeply personal process of becoming someone who can tolerate the valley. Who can stand in the bewildering one, in the cold, watching something beautiful that refuses to explain itself, and not immediately need it to mean something that fits neatly inside language.

I am not that person yet. I want to be. I catch glimpses of it, usually in places like that one, where the world is large enough that my need to understand everything becomes briefly embarrassing and then briefly releases.

The snow kept falling. The lake kept receiving it without complaint.

I took a photograph that couldn’t hold any of it, and then I just stood there a while longer, umbrella in hand, letting the cold do what cold does. Strip everything back to what’s actually there.

I don’t know what I was looking for at that lake. I don’t know if I found it.

But I think the not-knowing, held without panic, might be the closest thing to an answer that this kind of question allows.

By the way, did you know that I’m actively writing in malayalam also these days. Find them here. I’ve written a small book as well if you’re into that. If you like listening to stuff, do scroll through the selection of podcasts. If you’ve time, have a look at the visuals I’ve made. Grateful for your moment here. Keep coming back here : )

the window seat

Posted on by Ajmal

My son is pressed toward the oval window like it is a secret portal the world forgot to lock.

There is something holy about the way children look outside an airplane. Not curious in the noisy way adults are curious. Not trying to capture it, not trying to explain it, not trying to turn it into proof. He is simply there, leaning into the light, letting the sky arrive in him without resistance.

The cabin around us is a small mechanical universe. Plastic edges. A screen that knows how to entertain. Trays and latches and polite instructions. Everything is designed to make travel efficient, controlled, predictable. Yet his gaze refuses that architecture. His eyes keep returning to the one soft, ancient element that cannot be managed: open space.

This is what moves me.

Because I realise how much of adulthood is spent building inner cabins. We create routines, boundaries, strategies. We learn to fold ourselves into seats that fit. We learn to keep our feet within the lines. We learn to be useful, to be correct, to be timely. Over time, even wonder becomes scheduled. Even joy gets a slot between meetings.

But my son has not learned any of that yet. He does not know the weight of deadlines. He does not know the silent negotiations inside a grown man’s chest. He does not know the language of worry that adults speak fluently without moving their lips. He has not inherited the habit of looking at the world and immediately asking, “What does this mean for me?”

He only looks.

And in that looking, he reminds me of something I keep misplacing.

That the world is not a problem to solve. It is a presence to meet.

When I watch him, I begin to understand the window as more than a piece of glass. It is a border. Not the kind that separates countries, but the kind that separates states of being. On one side, a child who still belongs to the wide open. On the other, a parent who is always tempted to reduce the wide open into plans and precautions.

The window is also a mirror, if I let it be. I see my own life as a sequence of departures.

Leaving childhood without knowing I was leaving it.

Leaving friends with the confidence that time would wait.

Leaving places I swore I would return to, then discovering that return is never a perfect circle. You go back, but you are not the same person. The streets are familiar, but your inner weather has changed.

Maybe that is what travel really does. It does not merely move our bodies across distances. It exposes how often our hearts live in the wrong time zone.

My son, meanwhile, is perfectly timed.

He looks out at a sky that offers no promises. No fences. No signboards. Only a vast, indifferent beauty. And he is not intimidated by it. He does not ask the sky to shrink into something comfortable. He does not demand that it be useful. He simply allows it to be enormous.

I envy that. I need that.

Because there is a quiet fear adults carry, even when everything is fine. A fear that life is slipping forward faster than we can hold it. That our children are growing in increments too small to notice, until one day a voice deepens, a hand becomes larger than ours, and the doorway suddenly looks different because they are almost tall enough to leave.

In this moment, his legs are stretched toward the seat in front, shoes slightly too big for his small frame, as if even his body is practicing for the future. I want to freeze time, not because I am unhappy with what is coming, but because I am stunned by how quickly love evolves. It begins as protection. It becomes guidance. Then one day, it becomes a blessing you give from a distance.

Parenthood with all my imperfectness is the art of holding and releasing at the same time.

Maybe that is why this scene pierces me. This is not just my son looking out at clouds. This is my heart rehearsing the day he will look out at the world without me sitting beside him. The day he will be the one in motion, and I will be the one waving from the ground, pretending my smile is enough.

Yet I also feel something gentler beneath the ache.

Gratitude.

That I get to witness this version of him.

That I get to sit close enough to hear his quiet breathing while the world rearranges itself outside.

That I get to learn, again and again, from someone who has not yet been trained to doubt beauty.

I do not know what he is thinking as he looks out. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Perhaps he is not thinking at all, only receiving. And perhaps that is the highest form of intelligence we forget as we grow older: the ability to be moved without needing to own the reason.

The sky will not remember this flight. The clouds will not keep our names.

But I will remember this.

The small head turned toward light.

The way wonder can live in a seatbelt.

The way a child can turn a simple window into a doorway back to what is true.

And as the plane continues forward, I make a quiet promise to myself.

To not rush past moments like this.

To let his wonder educate my tired adulthood.

To look out more often, even when there is no window.

Because sometimes, the most profound journeys are not the miles we travel, but the return we make to a gaze that is still capable of awe.

breath and branch, a reflection

Posted on by Ajmal

You know.. sometimes travel memories light you up from inside. This is one such recollection that I want to share with you.  I had travelled to Cold Spring Harbor in Laurel Hollow, a beautiful village in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York. It is one of the finest green spaces I have ever walked through in my life , a place where the density of the trees creates its own soft hush, where the calmness settles into you before you even realise it, where the slowness of the air feels like an invitation to breathe differently. Being someone who has spent most of my adult life in the Middle East, this sort of a space is one of the luxuries I cherish. The interplay of trees and light were like magic. The sunlight filtered through the trees with a gentleness that made everything look newly washed. I remember sitting on that empty bench for a long moment, letting the silence settle around me. The trees stood in their quiet confidence, their branches stretching into the open sky as if reaching for something that had always been there. Sitting there peacefully, I had a kind of clarity that morning that felt almost unfamiliar. Netta and I (may be Ehan also) have fond memories of this place.

The shape of the trees in particular…made me skim through a faint recollection from years ago. I once came across an old illustration in a very old art book, a simple sketch that placed a pair of human lungs beside the shape of a winter tree. I’m not remembering the book.  The image had stayed with me without my knowing it, tucked quietly into some corner of thought. I had forgotten its details. But sitting there in Laurel Hollow, the memory returned with surprising clarity. The resemblance was unmistakable now. The trees around me were breathing in their own slow language. And somewhere inside my chest, a matching structure was doing the same. I’ve tried to draw it digitally here. I am marveling at the similarity between the lung airways and the tree branches.

The branches overhead divided and softened into thinner lines, narrowing into delicate paths of light. Deep inside the body, the airways mirror this same patient branching, splitting again and again until they reach the quiet threshold where air becomes life. It is almost impossible not to feel humbled by this symmetry. That the architecture of a tree and the architecture of a lung share the same longing. To hold. To receive. To release.One breathes out what the other breathes in. A silent partnership written long before we learned how to notice it.

Sitting there that afternoon,  the shadows of the branches lay across the grass like long fingers of memory. The world around me felt achingly familiar and strangely new. The trees were not just scenery… they were part of a larger rhythm that had been happening around me my entire life. A rhythm my body participates in without instruction, without effort, without acknowledgment most days.

It made me wonder how many miracles move through our ordinary days unnoticed. Trees that give without being thanked. Lungs that work even when we forget them for weeks at a time. The quiet exchange between the two continuing in perfect harmony, whether or not we are aware of it. Whether or not we ever pause long enough to recognise the beauty of being held between them.

There is something tender in this realisation. That the world outside and the world inside are not separate at all. The trees stand on the hillside, reaching upward. The lungs rest quietly beneath the ribs, reaching inward. Both searching for the same invisible gift. Both offering it back. Both shaped by a generosity that requires nothing from us.

Most days, we pass through life too quickly to see these patterns. The branches remain branches. The breath remains breath. The sacred hides inside the familiar. But once in a while, on a morning like that one, something makes you look twice. And in that second look, something opens.

A tree. A lung. Two reflections of the same mercy.

And you realise that all of this continues even if you never notice. But noticing turns the ordinary into reverence. And reverence becomes a quiet remembrance of the Almighty, who shaped both breath and branch in the same loving pattern. A moment of grace. Let not the noise of this life blind our inner eyes. The trees on the sides from your drive back from work, may now look a bit different 🙂

unscripted

Posted on by Ajmal

Sailing across the serene waters of Pwani, I vividly feel the rustic charm of the wooden boat beneath us, a shared moment of tranquility with Netta and Ehan. In this journey, as the oars slice through reflections, we’re reminded that life’s essence is found in these quiet connections, in the ebb and flow of the tides and time. | Principal photography and styling: Ajmal | theborderofamind studios

Thank you for coming back to read. Yes, I’m directly writing to you, yes, You! Let’s have a heart-to-heart for a moment, shall we? You know, life’s this wild, unpredictable journey, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately. They never really tell you that you won’t have all the answers, and honestly, that’s okay.

Remember how you were trying to make sense of everything that happened to you, those unexpected twists and turns? I’ve been there too. I used to think I needed to have my future all mapped out, but guess what? I realized that the beauty of life isn’t in having a flawless path. It’s in the stumbling, the learning, the growing.

You know what else struck my thought today? Learning to embrace the unknown. It’s like when you’re trying a new hobby for the first time – maybe it’s painting, or maybe it’s hiking through uncharted trails. There’s a thrill in not knowing exactly how it’ll turn out, right? And setting boundaries – that’s crucial. Just like when you decide how far you’ll hike or when to put down the paintbrush. It’s all about respecting your limits and your wellbeing.

And about letting go – it’s like tidying up your space, getting rid of the old stuff that no longer serves you. It’s not just about physical clutter, but emotional baggage too. Making room for new experiences, new joys. That’s the kind of forgiveness and release I’m talking about. It’s about making peace with the past and carving out space for the future.

So, here’s how both of us are going to do it: Start embracing the life you have, with all its imperfections. Find those small things that bring you joy, the people who light up your world, and the passions that ignite your spirit. Remember, it’s not about perfecting your journey; it’s about living it, one day at a time. Let’s do this together, shall we? 🌟

human glow

Posted on by Ajmal
Grains of wonder, speckled remnants of discoveries made along the shoreline. Tiny treasures cling to Ehan’s small toes, each step a keepsake of joyful play by the sea.

You know those little unfiltered moments that feel so human and real? I’m obsessed. The messy morning hair, the big yawns when you first wake up, the way your shirt rides up when you stretch. How the wind playfully tussles your locks when you’re outside. The kind of full-bellied laugh that makes your eyes water. Sleepy, dreamy eyes that say you stayed up too late talking. The butterflies in your stomach when you have a crush. An innocent smile that keeps growing into laughter until you’re crying happy tears. Bumping shoulders with someone as you walk side-by-side unable to contain your excitement. Blushing and stumbling over your words when you get all giddy. Those rare times when we can just be our true, unguarded selves, without pretense or self-consciousness. Just pure, raw, natural human moments. We don’t appreciate these fleeting instants enough. It’s the unfiltered realness of people that makes me fall in love with humanity.

voyage’s vision

Posted on by Ajmal
Somewhere in Zanzibar

None of us hit the open road purely for kicks. We grab those suitcases and gas up the car because we’re driven by something deeper—a fundamental human need to explore new horizons. With each new mile unfurling under our wheels, we can feel the routine and familiarity of home fading behind us. And as we immerse ourselves in places where people speak different languages, eat different foods, live different lives, something inside us begins to shift and expand.

It’s like our minds are tired old sponges, thirsty for new sights, sounds, and experiences to soak up. And little by little, each small discovery accumulation leads to a subtle but profound change in our perspective.

When we finally return home again, initially it seems like nothing has changed on the surface. Our houses, our streets, our neighborhoods—they appear just as we left them. But deep down, we know something is different. Because we have been transformed from within. The way we see the world and our place in it has been altered in some subtle but significant way.

So, while we may not set out just for thrills, the truth is that travel satiates our soul’s deepest appetite. And by enriching our inner lives, it changes everything.

home is not a place.

Posted on by Ajmal
Home is not a place, but the memories we carry in our hearts, feelings and nostalgia we carry within us, the history that shapes us, and the love that connects us to those we have left behind.  No matter how far we travel, home remains alive within us through the flavors, sounds, and stories. | theborderofamind.com

Often, I get very nostalgic about memories for few days when I travel from home. On a patient wait at the airport baggage claim on my way back to Sharjah from Kerala, I watched the conveyor belt rotate endlessly, carrying countless suitcases filled with the cherished items and memories of faraway homes, bags, packed homemade snacks, shoes, clothes, perfumes. An elderly couple from Kerala stood nearby, returning to their work life in Sharjah after a visit back home. I imagined the contents of their bags: his favorite mundu that he’s worn for decades, folded delicately alongside fragrant bags of cardamom tea from a Munnar trip. Her collection of gold bangles and jasmine hair oil passed down from her grandmother, wrapped protectively to withstand the long journey. Jars of homemade mango and wild jackfruit pickle, transported from her sister’s kitchen, jars of mango achaar wrapped protectively, reminding them of carefree childhood days playing hide-and-seek in jackfruit orchards. The aromatic coconut oil for their long, silver hair, conjuring images of mother braiding it lovingly each morning before school. His favorite tea leaves, recalling late nights on the veranda discussing life’s challenges and joys with his father. The taste of piping hot appams and vegetable stew, the sounds of temple bells and bicycle horns, the feel of fresh air from open paddy fields, the smell of fresh coriander powder in a mill. They chatted softly in Malayalam, no doubt reminiscing about their time back home. I pictured the memories their visit must have kindled – long, laughter-filled conversations on the back porch, the smell of beef fry and parottas at a late night thattukada.

Home is not a place, but the memories we carry in our hearts, feelings and nostalgia we carry within us. Regardless of where our travels take us, we bring pieces of home along through the flavors, sensations, people and stories that shaped our younger days.  No matter how far we travel, home remains alive within us through them.

Tastes of home

Home within you

permanent address

Posted on by Ajmal

My father had forwarded a beautiful message and it was thought provoking. This being my garden of thoughts, I feel this needs to be here. I’ve refined it with some modifications and I’m posting it here.

Somewhere during a stop in the village of Mahonda on the island of Unguja

The Permanent Address

I was 9 years old when my father received orders of transfer to a small village in Rajasthan. We were living in Ahmedabad at the time, and my father was in the process of building a new house next to our ancestral home.

I had witnessed him grapple with countless numbers, managing loan accounts of his staff, assessing fixed deposits, and leaving question marks scattered over blank spaces in the total.

Building a house is a once-in-a-lifetime effort for most people, so everyone goes Building a home is often a singular endeavor, a once-in-a-lifetime investment that pushes one to the limit. Despite all efforts, one always finds their dream home one room short. Renowned poet Javed Akhtar, captures this sentiment eloquently, “In Bombay, there’s but one sorrow, everyone’s home lacks one more room.”

The joint family home that I grew up in housed 14 people, from the ages of 5 to 95. Now, I observe both houses standing deserted, with nature reclaiming the garden that my mother once lovingly nurtured. The Plum, the Moringa, a few Sorrowless trees, Neem and Bodhi, persist. Yet, all aesthetic pleasures are ephemeral and delicate, succumbing to the relentless law of entropy. The vibrant blooms have all vanished. I often ponder about the fate of the peacock family that used to feed from my mother’s hand. Where are the nightingales, sparrows, parrots, pied flycatchers, cuckoos, and the large group of monkeys that would periodically disrupt the tranquility?

Once people leave, a home becomes a house. I didn’t feel like selling the house at first, but now I don’t feel like going back either. Time has taken away ten of the fourteen people who once lived here. Wandering through our neighborhood, I observe a similar destiny befalling numerous homes, once teeming with life, now lying dormant or replaced.

Why do we stretch and stress to build houses? In most cases our kids won’t need it or worse fight over it. What is this human folly of attempting permanent ownership in a leased life with an uncertain tenure given by a landlord whose terms are non-negotiable and there is no court of appeal. One day, all we have built with love and EMIs will either be demolished, fought over, sold, or lie in ruins. Every time I fill out a form that asks for my “permanent address,” I smile at the human folly.

There is a Zen story about an old monk who walked into a king’s palace and demanded to spend the night. The guards told him that this was a palace, not an inn. But the monk replied, “I came here a few decades ago, and someone was staying here then. A few years later, someone else took the throne. And so it has continued. Any place where the occupant keeps changing is an inn.“

George Carlin once said, “A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.“

As houses get bigger, families get smaller. When the house is full of people, we crave privacy. And when the nest empties, we crave company.

Birds and Animals must be laughing at us humans that give up living in order to build their dream home and in the end depart the Inn they mistook as a PERMANENT RESIDENCE.

contemplating the inner mirror

Posted on by Ajmal
“A thought is a veil, not a reflection; thus, you dwell within a cocoon of thoughts, disconnected from the essence of Reality.” | Photographed and styled by The Border of a Mind

The reflective nature of existence

In the words of an insightful philosopher: “Why fear thoughts? For it is through them that we bring order to the world.” Yet, the very act of thinking has the power to veil reality so completely that we become blind to it.

In imparting wisdom to his disciples, he elucidated: “A thought is a veil, not a reflection; thus, you dwell within a cocoon of thoughts, disconnected from the essence of Reality.” This charming allegory by Anthony de Mello highlights the profound truth; life is a prism reflecting the depth of your inner thoughts.

Individuals often attribute their tribulations to external circumstances, endeavoring fruitlessly to transform their surroundings in the hopes of ameliorating their lives. This approach seldom yields success, as their thoughts remain incongruent. What the mind envisions materializes, regardless of one’s desires.

Life, as a mirror, reflects your very essence back to you.

Perceiving the World Through the Self

The world, as we perceive it, is not an objective reality but rather a reflection of our inner selves. If you perceive the world as precarious, you will seek evidence to validate this belief, perhaps by focusing on distressing news stories that confirm your convictions.

“Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.”

— Earl Nightingale

Conversely, some individuals embrace the beauty of life, attracting delightful experiences as a consequence. These people are not naïvely optimistic, but rather prioritize joy in the face of adversity. Thus, we observe two distinct individuals manifesting dissimilar circumstances, driven by their prevailing beliefs dictating their reality.

The Malleability of Thought and Experience


Continuously, your conscious and unconscious thoughts shape the world around you, as reality becomes a mirror reflecting your inner realm. Should your thoughts be distorted, it is imperative to realign them with the truth. Failing to do so may lead you into the abyss of despair.

The power of choice lies within you. Reality manifests external conditions in accordance with your thoughts. Life is neither fair nor unjust; it merely confirms your thoughts as both the creator and the experiencer.

As our perception of life is an experience of thought, overthinking complicates our existence, constricting the aperture of our consciousness. Soon, all we discern when peering into the world is our own thinking mirrored back to us in the distorted reflection of self-awareness.

Embracing the Duality of Life ,the Illusion of Free Will


“The wise man smiles in adversity, gathers strength from distress, and becomes courageous through reflection.”

— Thomas Paine

Life flourishes due to its dualistic nature, comprising equal and opposite forces. Day yields to night, each complementing the other. Without darkness, how could one appreciate the light of day?

Many individuals ardently defend the concept of free will, yet it could be argued that free will is an illusion, veiling our unconscious beliefs as choices. Your decisions stem from ingrained beliefs established during your formative years, when your environment was outside of your control.

Life offers feedback regarding the congruence of your thoughts, enabling you to take corrective action. Consider your external environment as a reflection of your inner landscape. When observing an external event or situation, delve within to uncover the parallel, the connection.

Embracing Personal Growth

Many hold fast to the idea that their thoughts are unchangeable. This belief is flawed, as countless individuals have triumphed over limiting beliefs to forge empowering lives. Your existence is an amalgamation of outcomes, symbols, and shadows. Positive and negative moments exist only in the meaning you attribute to them. Reality provides feedback to guide you in amending your course and constructing new circumstances based on a shift in awareness.

Personal development and self-improvement serve as the catalyst for enduring transformation, provided you commit to the inner work.

The impediment becomes the pathway.

The journey reveals the way.

The world is a reflection of your mind. If chaos and confusion reign within, your external world must mirror that. You must perceive what you believe, for you are the confounded thinker, the interpreter of all things. If chaos abounds within you, the sights and sounds you encounter will echo that chaos.

Life is the manifestation of your innermost thoughts and I truly believe this is where we can connect with the Almighty.

God bless.

no moment is devoid of worth.

Posted on by Ajmal
A blissful boat ride with Netta and Ehan through the serene waters of Zanzibar, a memory to treasure. | composed and styled by Ajmal, The Border Of a Mind [dot] com

In life, no moment is devoid of value. The tender embrace of a vada pav’s brioche at the office canteen. The unyielding nature of affection. The intricate design of confectionary rings. The quietness after a kiss. The velvety glide of a spice-laden shawarma toast from the cafeteria. The nocturnal lament carried by the wind from the balcony on an early morning. An unexpected GPS detour leading to discovery of a new place. The melancholy of deflated culinary ambitions at the kitchen. The tedium of anticipating destiny’s plan for something. The flawless crunch of a well-crafted pastry parcel.

The hesitancy permeating a romantic encounter. The subtlety of linguistic artistry in a foreign tongue. The precise elegance of a tailored shirt. The ephemeral bond forged through a fleeting glance. The opulence of being cradled in a toddler’s embrace. The alchemy of flawlessly softened dairy. The aroma of freshly pressed pages. The gentle cascade of crystalline luminescence. The distant echo of a once-cherished voice. The comforting pressure of familiar hands encircling your form.

The trepidation before facing the undiscovered. The immutable presence of sorrow. The benevolence of unfamiliar faces in a metro. The ever-widening chasm separating aspiration and achievement. The symphony of droplets colliding with metallic surfaces. The unuttered sentiments haunting your thoughts. The declarations that escaped your lips. Your essence is molded by each encounter and sensation, as both the tangible and intangible leave their indelible mark. Nothing and no one is devoid of purpose or significance in this transitory existence.