I accidentally came across a one-hour narration about the love story of Sahir Ludhianvi, Amrita Pritam and Imroz.

There were still fifteen minutes left when I knew I had to write.

After I finished those last fifteen minutes, the story stayed with me in a completely different way.

Somewhere in them, it stopped being only about Amrita, Sahir and Imroz, and became something much closer to me.

There are some stories that end when the narrator stops speaking. And there are some that continue quietly inside us long after the screen goes dark.

This was one of those stories.

I went into it thinking I was going to listen to a love story.

I came out thinking about love itself.

We fall in love with Imroz because of the way he loved Amrita. There was something so deeply moving about a love that didn’t seem to ask for ownership in return. He loved her without trying to possess her, without asking her to erase what came before him.

There was something unconditional about the way he loved.

And perhaps we love Amrita a little differently because we see her through Imroz’s eyes.

And Sahir?

If anything, there is a strange tenderness with which we look at him too. A little sadness. A little ache. Perhaps because we see him through another lens, the lens of love, loss and all the things that remained unfinished.

And I realised something while listening.

At every point, we are looking at someone through a lens.

The lens through which we look determines what we notice.

If the lens is kindness, we notice the tenderness. and if the lens is love, we notice the things someone gave.

If the lens is hurt, we notice every wound.

And perhaps that is why the same person can look so different to us at different points in our lives.

Toward the end of the narration, after taking us through this story of love, loss and unconditional love, the narrator asks the audience three questions.

The first:

How many of us want an Imroz in our lives?

Almost everyone would probably raise their hands.

Then:

How many of us already have an Imroz in our lives?

Fewer hands.

And then comes the question that stayed with me the longest:

How many of us want to be an Imroz in somebody else’s life?

Even fewer.

If you've watched the video, perhaps these three questions carry the weight of everything that came before them. If you haven't, they may sound like simple questions. But there is something hidden inside them.

It is easy to wish for unconditional love.
It is harder to recognise it when it is already around us.
And perhaps harder still to become that kind of person for someone else.

The narrator then asks us to look around and recognise the people who may already be loving us in ways we have stopped noticing. And he brings us back home—to our parents, to the people who were there before we knew how to ask for love.

And he brings us back home.

To our parents.

To the people who were there before we knew how to ask for love.

That was the moment the story stopped being someone else’s story for me.

Because I am at home.

And I know what it means to be loved here.

I also know what it means to be hurt here.

And both things are true.

For a long time, when I thought about leaving home, I imagined leaving as an escape.

I wanted peace and I wanted distance.

I wanted to be somewhere where I could finally hear myself without everything around me becoming louder than my own thoughts.

And I still want that.

Nothing about this story has changed that.

If you asked me today whether I would leave home for my peace, I would still say yes.

But something has changed in the way I imagine leaving.

I need to get away from them without turning away from them.

Now I think I would rather leave carrying love with me.

Not because everything that happened was right nor that suffering should be forgotten.

Not even because being grateful means forgiving everything.

And certainly not because parents cannot hurt their children.

They can.

They do.

And children can carry those hurts for years.

But my suffering does not have to make me blind.

That is the thought I couldn’t stop returning to.

I have suffered because of things that happened around me.

I know that.

I don’t want to deny it just because I am writing about gratitude.

But my suffering is not the only truth about my home.

There is another truth sitting beside it.

I exist because of these people and have been cared for by these people.

I have received things I didn’t know how to ask for.

I have been loved in ways that I may not always have recognised while I was busy trying to understand everything that hurt me.

And I am grateful.

Deeply grateful.

But even that word unconditional—doesn’t quite seem to fit.

I don’t know if the love in every home can be divided so neatly into conditional and unconditional.

Sometimes someone provides for you because they love you. Or you love them because they provide for you.

Sometimes both things are happening at once and love comes with expectations.

Sometimes it gives without asking and the person who loves you also hurts you.

Sometimes the person who hurt you is still the person who worries whether you’ve eaten.

What do we call that?

I don’t know.

Maybe it doesn’t need a name.

Maybe there is a middle ground we don’t talk about enough.

A place where love and hurt exist in the same house.

Where gratitude and resentment can sit beside each other.

Where you can acknowledge someone’s sacrifices without denying your own suffering.

Where you can recognise someone’s love without pretending they never caused you pain.

Where you can want to leave without hating the people you are leaving behind.

And perhaps that is where I am.

Just someone standing somewhere in the middle, trying to understand what love looks like when it is imperfectly human.

I don’t want to become someone who keeps a ledger of everything my parents have done for me.

But I also don’t want to use gratitude as a reason to erase the things that hurt.

I don’t want to romanticise suffering nor romanticise family simply because it is family.

But I also don’t want my pain to become such a powerful lens that it hides every act of love that existed alongside it.

Maybe healing, for me, is not choosing one truth over the other.

Maybe it is learning to hold both.

You hurt me. And You loved me.

I need to leave. And I am grateful.

I want a life of my own. And I will carry the love with me.

Perhaps this is what the story gave me.

Not an answer.

Just another way of looking.

A softer lens.

A lens that doesn’t ask me to forget. Nor does it ask me to stay

A lens that simply tells me that I can walk away from what hurts me without turning everything that once held me into something I have to hate.

Maybe I don’t have an Imroz waiting for me at home.

Maybe the people at home are not Imroz.

Maybe I am not an Imroz either.

And perhaps that is okay.

Because real life is rarely made of people who fit perfectly into these beautiful categories of unconditional love, conditional love, giver, receiver, lover, beloved.

We are messier than that.

We love, we expect, we fail, we give, we hurt.

And we try again.

We carry our histories into one another.

And somewhere in all that mess, there is still love.

Maybe the question isn’t always,

“Who is my Imroz?”

Maybe sometimes it is,

I don’t know if I have the answer yet.

I only know that if I leave someday, I don’t want to leave running away from my home.

I want to leave carrying myself and my peace, everything that I have learned and the things I refuse to inherit.

And, somewhere among all of that,

carrying gratitude.

Not because my story was perfect.

But because it was mine.

And because perhaps love does not always need to be perfect to be real.

Sometimes it is simply there-

in the middle,

where none of our neat little boxes are big enough to hold it.

There are some things you imagine for so long that, when they finally happen, they take a little time to feel real.

This is one of them.

Life in Little Things was officially published this Monday. And today, I finally wanted to share it here with the very people who have been a part of this little world from the beginning.

What started as a collection of thoughts, feelings, memories, questions, and ordinary moments has now become a book.

I have always believed that life is made up of things we often overlook, the conversations we remember years later, the feelings we don’t know how to name, the small moments that quietly change us, and the little things that somehow end up meaning the most.

That is what Life in Little Things holds.

A collection of those little things, put into words.

And perhaps the most special part of seeing this book out in the world is knowing that many of its words began here, on these pages, with you reading them.

So, after all this time, I can finally say it:

My book, Life in Little Things, is out in the world. ✨

You can find it here:

Amazon:
https://link.amazon

Flipkart:
https://www.flipkart.com

Google Play Books:
https://play.google.com/store/books

If you pick up a copy, I hope you find a little bit of yourself somewhere inside it.

And to everyone who has read my words here, supported my writing, subscribed, shared, encouraged me, or simply stayed

thank you for making these little things feel worth writing down. ❤️

Here’s to Life in Little Things, now beginning a new chapter beyond the screen.

With love,
Pravalika

Sometimes I think that to have truly lived is to have loved something deeply.

Not necessarily a person. It could be a place, a dream or a song, a piece of art, a life you wanted for yourself. Anything that made you feel something so deeply that, for a moment, you forgot to be careful with your heart.

And then there is the kind of love I am thinking about right now.

The love where you don’t expect anything from the other person. You just want to be there. You can be yourself around them. Nothing needs to be confessed. Nothing needs to happen.

Sometimes, even a hello is enough.

Oh my God, it is so torturous.

And yet, it is such a bittersweet part of life.

I don’t know why whenever I see art created around this kind of love, I get tears in my eyes. There is something about it that reaches somewhere inside me before I can even understand what it is. And somehow, there is a smile on my face at the same time.

Maybe because some people become a part of our lives without ever really becoming a part of our lives.

They can belong to us without ever having been ours.

as a song or a scent. ordinary things that somehow become permanently attached to a person.

How strange is that?

Someone can enter your world without knowing they have entered it. They can become a sweet, aching little part of your life without even knowing that you existed in that particular way.

They come.

And then they leave.

And we just stand there with tears in our eyes and a smile on our face, trying to understand how something that barely happened could mean so much.

I never expected anything from you.

The hello was enough.

And somehow, in my mind, I had already imagined my life with you.

Not because I wanted anything from you. I didn’t.

I just loved the feeling of giving and loving, this enormous feeling inside me without needing it to be returned.

Maybe that is what I find so beautiful about it.

There was no bargain.

No I love you, so you should love me back.

No demand to stay.

Just me, loving you in the quietest way I knew how.

And perhaps that is why one-sided love can feel so pure and so painful at the same time.

Because it lives almost entirely inside us.

There is no reality to interrupt the imagination. No ordinary mornings, no misunderstandings, no little things that slowly make someone less magical. There is just the feeling, preserved exactly as it was.

And maybe that is why certain songs hurt so much. You hear them and suddenly you are somewhere else.

You see a painting and your eyes fill with tears.

Someone says something about love and your heart quietly remembers.

And for some reason, it is always a yellow dress.

Oh my God.

It’s always a yellow dress.

I don’t even know why that stayed with me the way it did. It was just a phrase from my own life. A tiny thing. And yet, somehow, it became part of the whole feeling.

Maybe that is what memories do. They take the smallest things and give them a life of their own.

Maybe one day, this feeling will become softer and I will listen to the same song and it won’t hurt like this.

Maybe the yellow dress will just be a yellow dress.

Maybe the scent will just be a scent.

Maybe I will think of you and simply smile.

But right now, I don’t want to make myself stop feeling it.

Because as painful as it is, there is something beautiful about knowing that I was capable of feeling this much.

That I could love without asking to be loved and someone could become important to me without ever belonging to me.

And perhaps that is enough.

Perhaps not every person who enters our lives is meant to stay and some people are only meant to leave behind a song, a scent or a hello.

And perhaps sometimes, a hello really is enough.

I was standing there in the balcony of our rented house, looking at the sky. Vehicles were passing by. Buildings stood in different colours. Somewhere, there was a school, and somewhere, there was a world that seemed much bigger than the little balcony I was standing in.

And I remember wondering

Who am I?

What is this life?

It feels strange to write that now. What does a five year old know about life? What could a child that young possibly be trying to understand?

I don’t know.

Maybe I wasn’t really thinking about life the way I understand it today. Maybe I was simply looking at everything around me and wondering where I belonged in it.

But somehow, that little moment stayed as a picture in my mind and in my dreams.

Of all the things we are supposed to forget from childhood, I remember that.

I remember the sky.

I remember standing there.

I remember the feeling of being alone with a question I didn’t know how to ask anyone.

I was a middle child.

There were three of us, and somehow everyone had a place that seemed easier to understand than mine.

My younger brother was very young, and naturally, my mother was occupied with him. At the same time, she had many other responsibilities too taking care of my father, helping with the things around his work and business, and keeping the household moving.

My father was busy working and earning for us.

And my sister and I were often taken care of by neighbours.

My sister, being the elder one, had her own way of connecting with them. She was sweet, and people naturally gravitated towards her. She could talk to them, understand them, be understood by them.

And then there was me.

I wasn’t invisible.

That is something I understand better now.

I was loved. I was cared for. My mother cared about all of us.

But as a child, I think I noticed something else.

Someone always seemed to need the attention more.

My brother needed my mother because he was younger. My father needed her because of his work and responsibilities. My sister, being older, had a different kind of closeness with her.

And I was somewhere in between.

Not old enough to carry the responsibilities of the eldest.

Not young enough to be the carefree youngest.

Just somewhere in the middle, watching both worlds.

Maybe that is why I became such an observer.

I watched people. I noticed things.

I noticed moods, silences, expressions, the way people spoke to one another. I learned to understand things without always being told what they meant.

And perhaps somewhere along the way, I also learned loneliness.

Not the dramatic kind.

The kind where you are surrounded by people and still don’t quite know where to place yourself.

The kind where nobody has intentionally left you out, but you still feel slightly outside of everything.

The kind that makes a child stand on a balcony and look at the sky, wondering who she is.

Then something changed.

I became unwell.

As a child, I had serious health problems, and hospitals became a familiar part of my childhood.

And suddenly, I knew what attention felt like.

Both my parents were there.

They were worried about me. They watched me. They took care of me. They noticed when I was in pain.

I was scared, of course.

Hospitals frightened me. They still do.

Being unwell frightened me.

But somewhere inside that fear, I also discovered something I had been quietly craving.

Care.

And my little mind made a connection that I didn’t understand at that time.

When I am unwell, people care for me.

When I am sick, people notice me.

When something is wrong with me, I matter a little more.

It hurts me to admit that I sometimes wanted to be unwell.

I wanted a fever.

I wanted something to happen that would make someone come and sit beside me, ask me how I was feeling, look at me with concern, hold me a little longer.

Not because I wanted attention desperately.

Because I wanted care.

I wanted the kind of love that makes a child feel safe.

But somehow, my childhood mind learned to associate that feeling with being sick.

Nobody sat me down and told me that I had to be sick to be loved.

I simply experienced enough moments where sickness brought everyone closer that my little mind quietly made the connection.

And some connections take years to notice.

Even now, when I am unwell, there is a strange part of me that feels comforted by the thought that someone will care for me a little more.

I know better now.

I know that love doesn’t have to arrive through a hospital bed that I don’t have to be hurting for someone to hold me.

But some lessons we learn as children are difficult to unlearn.

They wait for us to understand them.

And perhaps this is also what being a middle child gave me.

Not just loneliness.

Not just confusion.

Something beautiful too.

I learned to observation and sensitivity.

I learned how to exist between different worlds.

I watched my older sister and learned something from the person she was becoming. I watched my younger brother and understood something about being cared for, being carefree, being the little one.

I carried pieces of both worlds with me.

And because I wasn’t completely defined by either one, I slowly built something of my own.

Independence.

I became independent because, somewhere inside me, I had already learned to find my own little space.

To entertain myself.

To think by myself.

To sit with questions.

To look at the sky.

To make sense of things quietly.

Perhaps that little girl on the balcony was already beginning to build an inner world of her own.

An inner world where she could ask questions nobody else knew she was asking.

Who am I?

Where do I fit?

Why do I feel this way?

I don’t think she knew that those questions would follow her.

I don’t think she knew that the loneliness she felt wasn’t proof that nobody loved her.

She simply didn’t yet know how to understand the difference between being loved and feeling seen.

And maybe that is what I would tell her now.

You don’t have to figure it out.

You don’t have to compete with your sister.

You don’t have to become like your brother.

You don’t have to become sick to be cared for.

You don’t have to earn your place in the family by needing something.

You already belong.

Maybe being a middle child was never about being the child who received less.

it was about being the child who spent a little more time wondering.

Wondering where she belonged and who she was.

Wondering what everyone else seemed to know so naturally.

And perhaps that wondering became part of who I am.

The girl who stood on a balcony, looking at the sky, didn’t know what her life would become.

She only knew that there was a whole world in front of her, and somehow, she wanted to understand it.

Years later, I still don’t have all the answers.

But I think I finally understand that little girl a little better.

She wasn’t invisible.

She was simply somewhere in between.

And sometimes, the child who grows up somewhere in between learns to build a world within herself and eventually learns that there is a place for her there, too.

I think I have finally said this enough times to believe it myself.

Life in Little Things is going to be a physical book.

For the longest time, I wanted to write a book with my name on it.

Not just contribute to one. Not just have a few pieces published somewhere. I wanted to sit with my own words, from the first page to the last, and one day hold them together as a book.

And somehow, that little dream is becoming real.

Life in Little Things began here, with you.

One essay at a time, I started writing about the things I noticed, the questions I carried, the moments I couldn’t stop thinking about, and the little lessons I found in ordinary days.

Some of these essays began as thoughts I didn’t know what to do with. Some came from conversations, books, movies, memories, friendships, endings, beginnings, and the smallest moments that stayed with me longer than I expected.

And slowly, they started becoming something more. A collection, a book

The physical edition will bring these essays together in one place, a book filled with little moments, memories, thoughts, and reflections that I have written, rewritten, and carried with me.

And there is something incredibly special about knowing that the words that once existed only on a screen will soon exist on paper.

You will be able to hold them.

That thought still makes me a little emotional.

Because Life in Little Things has never been only about the book.

It has been about learning to notice.

To pause.

To find meaning in things that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

And, somewhere along the way, it became a record of how I was learning to see the world and myself.

This year, at 22, I get to see one of my oldest dreams take a form I can actually hold in my hands.

My book is coming soon.

Published by Sapphire Scrolls Publication.

I don’t have all the details to share with you just yet, but I wanted you the people who have been reading these essays here to be among the first to know.

Because before Life in Little Things became a physical book, it was a little corner of the internet where I came to write to you.

And now, somehow, it is becoming a book.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for staying.

And thank you for giving these little things a place to belong.

Life in Little Things — coming soon.

With love,
Pravalika

I have always loved notebooks. I keep collecting them, and somehow, I now have fourteen or fifteen, each holding a different part of my life.

And always loved the feeling of beginning a new notebook the first page, the promise it carries, and the possibility of filling it with pieces of myself.

After my college got completed, I was left with a stack of unused papers.

They weren’t anything special just college papers that I thought I might use someday.

I got them cut into A5 sized sheets and even planned to get them spiral-bound. But somehow, it didn’t happen.

They came back to me with the holes punched for spiraling, but without the spirals themselves.

No binding happened.

And so, they sat quietly on my shelf for more than a month.

Then one day, I don’t know why, but I thought:

What if I bind it myself?

I had no bookbinding tools.

All I had was a bottle of glue, two cloth clips, a paintbrush that had been lying unused for years, and an ordinary pair of scissors.

I usually throw away cardboards after opening parcels, but somehow, I had saved one. It had been sitting on my shelf for no particular reason.

I decided to use that too.

And slowly, my work began.

I didn’t know what I would use for the cover. I changed my mind a dozen times before finally picking an old piece of cloth from one of my dresses.

Looking back, I don’t even remember planning any of it.

Things simply kept finding their place.

Half an hour later, I was holding a notebook I had made myself.

There is something magical about creating something from scratch.

It isn’t about how beautiful the final result looks.

It is about holding something in your hands and thinking:

I made this.

It is the happiness of seeing an idea become something real.

It is the quiet satisfaction of creating when no one asked you to.

And perhaps that is exactly what Life in Little Things has always meant to me.

This notebook was never meant to be another journal on my shelf.

I wanted it to become the physical copy of my publication a place where all my unfinished thoughts could belong before they became polished essays for the world to read.

The thoughts that may never become essays at all deserve a place too.

I wanted this notebook to hold my little things.

As someone who struggles with perfectionism, I have always been afraid of making my notebooks ugly.

My handwriting changes every few pages. I write too fast and make spelling mistakes.

If I don’t like the way something looks, I am tempted to tear the page away and begin again.

And so, I often end up writing on rough sheets of paper while my beautiful notebooks remain empty.

Perhaps I was saving them for a version of myself that writes more neatly and makes fewer mistakes.

This time, I didn’t want to do that.

So, I made a few rules for this notebook:

1. It is allowed to be messy.
2. It is allowed to be unfinished.
3. It is allowed to make mistakes.
4. No page will be torn.
5. No thought is too small to belong here.
6. Empty pages are the only wasted pages.

And then came my favourite little thing.

I sat down to write the first page of the notebook.

I wrote about how it is allowed to be imperfect and how all spelling mistakes are welcome here.

And then I misspelled imperfect as Imprefect.

I wrote it imperfectly.

A few lines later, while writing that all spelling mistakes are allowed, I misspelled mistakes as M-I-S-T-A-C-K-E-S.

I made a mistake in mistakes.

I laughed.

Not because I did it intentionally I didn’t.

If anything, I did what I have always done. I wrote too quickly because my thoughts arrived faster than my hands could catch them.

The difference was that this time, I didn’t tear the page away.

I didn’t rewrite it or feel disappointed.

I simply laughed at the irony of it all.

I made imperfect more imperfect, and I made mistakes make a mistake.

And somehow, it couldn’t have been more perfect.

There is another irony that I don’t think I had noticed before writing this essay.

I named my publication Life in Little Things because I believe ordinary things matter.

I believe little things deserve to be seen and cherished.

Yet, I don’t think I had extended that same kindness to myself.

I was willing to find beauty in ordinary things, but not always in my own imperfections.

This notebook taught me otherwise.

It began its life as unused college papers with visible spiral holes, leftover cardboard, glue marks, wrinkled cloth, uneven edges, and spelling mistakes on the very first page.

It is impossible for a notebook that began this way to demand perfection from the person writing in it.

So, I won’t ask it to.

Perhaps the first promise this notebook kept wasn’t that it would hold my thoughts.

It was that it would never ask me to become perfect before writing them down.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t correct my mistakes.

I laughed with them.

Because Life in Little Things was never about perfect things.

It has always been about ordinary, imperfect things that we often overlook.

And maybe, that includes me too.

Everyone has that one thing.

The thing people keep reminding them about as if they have never noticed it themselves. Their own insecurities.

Maybe it’s about weight, it’s about appearance. Maybe it’s about their career or it’s about marriage. It could be anything.

The thing they think about when nobody is watching and they carry into every room without saying a word.

The insecurities they carry without saying a word.

The insecurities they don’t need another person to remind them about.

Recently, the same thing happened to me.

One of my cousins visited our home, and somehow, all of a sudden, she started talking about how I should lose weight. She said that otherwise it would become difficult to find a match for me. She suggested walking. She suggested healthy habits, food habits, routines, and all of that, as if she was the one telling me the solutions.

The funny thing is that none of it was new information for me.

I know I am overweight and what exercise is.

I know what healthy eating is and what society expects from women, especially.

I do know what people say about marriage and how you should look and all of that.

But what made the conversation difficult wasn’t the advice itself. It was the assumption behind it.

As if I had somehow lived in this body for years without noticing it.

As if awareness was the missing piece.

The truth is that most people are far more aware of their insecurities than anyone else.

People who come and give advice see a problem.

But the person receiving the advice has been living inside that problem for years.

They don’t see the countless attempts.

They don’t see the life behind it.

They don’t see the private battles that are not visible to anyone else.

And yet, putting all of this aside, what made this conversation different was that she wasn’t speaking from a place of ignorance.

She was speaking as a person who knows.

As a person who walked a similar path.

Like me, she has spent years dealing with weight gain and she also spoke about medications and how medications can change a person’s body in ways that make it difficult to lose weight or reverse.

She knew losing weight is not just about walking more and eating less.

She knew the struggle behind it.

Maybe that’s why the conversation stayed with me.

Not because she was giving advice.

But because, in a way, she was talking about herself.

Again and again, she mentioned her husband marrying her because they were relatives.

Again and again, she spoke as if her weight made her less desirable.

As if her marriage happened despite who she was, not because someone genuinely chose her.

Listening to her, I felt a little sad.

It sounded like she was believing a story about herself that she still hasn’t escaped.

And maybe that was the real conversation happening in the room.

It wasn’t a woman warning another woman about her future.

It was a woman speaking from her own fears.

Trying to protect someone else from the insecurities she still carried herself.

And that made me realize something.

People often give advice about the wounds they know best.

Sometimes they are helping and other time they are healing.

And sometimes they don’t realize they are doing both at the same time.

The strangest part of the conversation was my father.

The person who often made comments about my body.

The person who contributed to some of my insecurities.

He was the one standing beside me.

He was speaking for me.

He was telling her that marriage was not the most important thing in life.

And I think life is strange that way.

Sometimes the people we least expect become our defenders.

While the conversation was happening, there was one thing I wanted to tell her.

If one day I choose to marry, I would choose a person who values the way I think, the values I care about, and the way I move through the world.

Not otherwise.

Not based on my weight nor based on how my body looks.

And if someone decides I am unworthy because of my body, then maybe they were never meant for me in the first place.

The older I grow, the more I realize that not every insecurity needs to be pointed out.

Most of us already know.

We know the things we are struggling with, the things we wish we could change.

We know the things that keep us awake at night.

What we don’t always know is whether we will be given the grace to figure it out in our own time.

Maybe that is what people need more.

Not lectures or reminders.

Not solutions.

But trust.

Trust that they know and that they are trying.

Trust that they are living in a story you cannot fully see.

Because sometimes the kindest thing we can do is believe that people already know the things they carry every day.

Just let them breathe.

“Education isn’t only about the subjects we learn. Sometimes it’s about the people who teach us how to live with ourselves.”

When we talk about education, we often speak about ranks and examinations I realize that education is something much deeper. It is about the people who shape our character, strengthen our hearts, and help us become the person we are meant to be.

There was a time when school meant hell to me. I was afraid of being scolded for not knowing the right answer. I was afraid of disappointing my teachers. I was afraid of speaking in classrooms and making mistakes.

There was a time when I was afraid of school itself.

I was never a confident child. I was the girl who hesitated before speaking. I was the girl who cried if I was asked to answer a question in class. I cried before going to school and found countless reasons to stay away from it. For a period of my childhood, that fear kept me away from classrooms and teachers.

If someone had told that little girl that she would one day grow up to love learning, stand before classrooms, and write an essay in gratitude for her teachers, she would never have believed them.

I was never the topper nor the most talented student. I considered myself average, sometimes even below average. Expressing my thoughts was difficult. Standing in front of others felt terrifying.

Yet today, I can stand before a classroom, give presentations, share my thoughts, write stories, and participate in opportunities I once never imagined myself taking part in.

That transformation did not happen overnight.

It happened because of people.

One of the earliest people who changed me was my teacher in ninth grade. I had a habit of saying “thank you” whenever someone helped me, even for the smallest things. During an examination, an invigilator noticed this habit in me. It was such a small moment that most people would have forgotten immediately. But he acknowledged it and, in his own way, expressed that my parents should be proud of the person I was.

For the first time, I felt seen not for my marks but for my character.

That simple sentence became one of the first building blocks of my confidence. It taught me that kindness mattered and that who I was as a person had value.

Unfortunately, he passed away before I completed my schooling. Even today, whenever I think about teachers who influenced my life, he is one of the first people who comes to mind. I never got the chance to thank him properly, but his words have stayed with me through the years.

In tenth grade, another teacher entered my life my biology teacher. He taught with passion. The way he explained concepts fascinated me. He made learning come alive.

Inspired by him, I decided to try explaining a topic in class myself.

I remember standing there with trembling hands. My entire body was shaking. Fear whispered that I would fail, that everyone would judge me. Yet I continued.

When my teacher appreciated my effort, something shifted within me.

It was not merely validation. It was permission to believe that maybe I was capable. Maybe I could speak.

As I grew older and entered college, I encountered professors who shaped me in entirely different ways.

I was fortunate to be surrounded by remarkable educators. Regardless of how I performed academically, they treated me with kindness, guidance, and respect.

Savitha Mam, Ranjita Mam, and Kalpana Mam became examples of strength and compassion. Through them, I witnessed what confidence, grace, and leadership looked like. They embodied values that inspired me deeply.

Kalpana Mam, in particular, became much more than an advisor. She felt like a second parent.

Similarly, Swami Sir guided and supported us with the warmth and concern of a parent.

Shakuntala Mam holds a very special place in my heart as well. Though I am grateful to every professor who taught me, some people leave impressions that remain with us forever, and she is undoubtedly one of them.

There was another professor chaitanya sir who taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life through an ordinary incident.

During a classroom presentation, I forgot what I was supposed to say next. I stood there in silence for nearly fifteen seconds. Panic filled my mind. I thought everyone would judge me. I believed I had ruined everything.

After the presentation, my professor said something I have never forgotten.

He told me, “Only you know what you intended to say. No one else in this room knows the point you forgot. If you miss something, simply move on.”

At first glance, it appeared to be advice about presentations.

In reality, it was advice about life.

We often believe that every mistake defines us, that every pause exposes our weaknesses. But the truth is that we can continue. We can move forward despite imperfection.

That lesson has stayed with me ever since.

While teachers and professors shaped me in classrooms, two people stood beside me outside them my sister and my best friend, Navya.

They were my constant support system throughout my school years.

One of my biggest struggles was Hindi. Ironically, I understood every lesson but struggled immensely with writing in Hindi. During examinations, I would often write my answers in English and add a note explaining that I could not write properly in Hindi.

Looking back, it sounds amusing.

My sister and Navya certainly thought so.

We laughed together over those answer sheets.

But what matters most is that they never made me feel inadequate. They transformed embarrassment into humor. They stood beside me during failures, celebrated small victories, encouraged me during difficult times, and reminded me that I was never alone.

Confidence is rarely built by a single person.

Sometimes, teachers open doors.

Friends and family hold our hands as we gather the courage to walk through them.

When I reflect on my life today, I realize that I do not remember every chapter I studied or every formula I memorized.

Instead, I remember moments like a teacher recognizing kindness in a quiet student, trembling hands and a biology teacher’s encouragement.

I remember professors who led with wisdom and compassion and an advice that taught me not to fear imperfection, a laughter shared over Hindi answer sheets. and the people who believed in me before I fully believed in myself.

I may not remember every lesson they taught me, but I carry the lessons they taught my heart every single day. The person I am today has been shaped, in small ways, by every teacher, professor, friend, and loved one who chose to believe in me.

Education gave me knowledge.

People gave me courage.

And for that, I will always be grateful.

Because perhaps the greatest teachers are not merely the ones who teach subjects.

They are the ones who help us discover ourselves and teach us how to live with ourselves.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to leave.

I don’t remember when that thought first entered my mind. I only know that it has always been there.

As a child, whenever I imagined my future I was somewhere far away. I imagined distance. Distance from this house, from the conflicts, from the uncertainty of never knowing what an ordinary day would become.

Growing up, I never knew when a fight would begin. Sometimes it was about money, about property and it was about things I wasn’t old enough to understand. But I understood enough to know that peace in our house never felt permanent.

As i grew I learned strange things. I learned to notice the silence before an argument begins, to prepare myself for things that haven’t happened yet and to expect that something would go wrong, even on the happiest of days.

I think that feeling has followed me into adulthood.

Even now, when I return home all my fears return with me. The fear of judgment, of someone saying something hurtful or the fear that something bad is going to happen. Nothing needs to happen for me to feel afraid. The possibility of it is enough.

And I always wonder how much of me was shaped by this fear.

A few days ago, I went to college to collect my certificates. I spent time with my friends. We laughed, talked, and did nothing extraordinary. It was an ordinary week.

There was nothing new about it. I have always felt lighter whenever i have been away from home. College was no different.

Yet, somewhere in that ordinariness, I noticed something I hadn’t paid attention to before.

I was happy.

Not the kind of happiness that comes from exciting news or big achievements. I was simply myself.

I spoke freely. I laughed without thinking twice about it. I wasn’t waiting for anything bad to happen. I wasn’t preparing myself for someone’s words before they were even spoken.

Then I came home.

And I became quieter again.

A version of myself that has learned to stay alert. A version that thinks before speaking a version that carries fear even on peaceful days.

That frightened me more than I expected.

Because it made me wonder which version is the real me.

The girl who laughs loudly with her friends? Or the girl who walks carefully through her own home?

Perhaps both are me.

For a long time, I thought wanting to leave made me selfish. I felt guilty for imagining a life far away from my family. Sometimes, I even felt guilty for wanting a life that belonged only to me.

For as long as I can remember, I have known that conflicts rarely end with the people who started them. They have a way of travelling quietly from one generation to the next, asking to be carried forward.

I have seen how easily they become inheritances. Stories are passed down before we are old enough to understand them. Sometimes, we are taught whom we should speak to, whom we should avoid, and whom we should blame.

I have never wanted that kind of inheritance.

Whatever conflicts the people before me carry belong to their stories, not necessarily mine. I do not want my relationships to be decided by wounds I did not create. I do not want to inherit resentment simply because it has existed for a long time.

Maybe that too, is one of the things I have always wanted to leave behind.

And maybe that is true for my relationship with home as well.

For years, I have been telling myself that I want to run away. Maybe I still do.

But I don’t think I am running away from people.

I think I am trying to leave behind the things that have frightened me for so long.

The walking on eggshells.

The fear.

The uncertainty.

The old wounds that refuse to become old.

Maybe that is why I have always wanted to leave.

Not because I wanted to stop loving my family.

I have simply spent my whole life searching for peace.

And if I leave one day, I hope it won’t be because I was running away.

I hope it will be because I finally learned that I am allowed to walk toward a quieter life.

What Happens When We Become So Certain That We Are Right That We Forget the Person Standing in Front of Us?

Today while I was scrolling I came across a video of a reporter standing in middle of a crowd while the people around him repeatedly called him a “loser” It was so heartbreaking to watch and i couldn’t stop thinking about it.

My first thought was, what had he done to deserve that?

For those who are unaware of the context, protests are taking place in India over a major examination paper leak that affected the futures of a million students. Their anger is understandable and their demand for justice is justified. Students work for years to give these examinations, and when something goes wrong, they deserve answers and accountability.

I am here not to write about the protest but the behaviour which lack empathy

While watching that video kept wondering how that reporter must have felt standing there while the crowd was calling him a loser. I wondered how his family must have felt watching it later. What if his child saw that video? What if his parents did?

He was doing his job, reporting about what was happening. Like most of us, he was simply trying to earn a living.

When something goes wrong we can criticize systems, we can ask difficult questions and demand accountability. But when did anger become a reason to stop being kind?

There is something I find difficult to ignore. We often protest for justice and humanity but sometimes in the process, we forget to extend that same humanity to the people standing before us.

If our protests teach us justice but not kindness, what have we really learned? If we fight for humanity while forgetting the human before us, what exactly are we protesting for?

Perhaps empathy matters the most when we are angry because kindness is easiest when we agree with someone, but it is hardest when we don’t.

And maybe that is what happens when we become so certain that we are right that we stop seeing the person standing before us.

Nothing becomes noble when it comes at the cost of someone else’s dignity.

It’s heartbreaking to see people do that.

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Photo by Road Ahead on Unsplash

There was a time when the people I love were simply part of my everyday life.

As a child it was my cousins, and as I grew up it was my friends.

We woke up in the same rooms spent entire afternoons together, celebrated festivals, argued over the silliest things, and somehow never ran out of conversations. We didn’t have to search for something to talk about. The conversation was our day itself.

Life kept handing us reasons to reach out.

As we grew older, everyone walked into different cities, different routines, different worries, and different versions of themselves. It’s not that the love disappeared. Sometimes, the shared life disappeared. And with it, the conversations that once came so effortlessly disappeared.

The silence didn’t arrive all at once.

It came quietly.

Daily calls became weekly.

Weekly became monthly.

Monthly became, “I will call you when I am free.”

Then came birthdays.

Then New Year’s wishes.

Then the occasional festival greeting.

Eventually, our conversations became little more than birthday wishes and festival messages, each ending with a heart emoji.

The heartbreaking part is that nobody ever decided, “Let’s stop being close.”

It just happened.

Time changed the rhythm before anyone noticed.

And yet, I think there’s something strangely beautiful about those messages too.

A birthday wish is no longer the relationship we once had, but it is a tiny proof that somewhere, in the middle of a completely different life, someone still remembers that I exist. It’s a quiet way of saying, I haven’t forgotten you completely.

Sometimes that’s what a relationship becomes because life kept moving in different directions.

The saddest part wasn’t that we stopped talking.

It was that we slowly ran out of the life we once shared.

A few months after college ended, recently I returned to collect my certificates.

On the way, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia The reason we had all been brought together was over. The classes had ended. Everyone was building a different life somewhere else.

But when I met my friends again, something unexpected happened.

I felt at ease.

Not because things were exactly the same, but because they didn’t need to be.

We no longer shared classrooms, hostel rooms, or the routines that once filled our days. We didn’t know every detail of each other’s lives anymore. Yet sitting beside them still felt familiar, as if some part of our friendship had quietly survived the distance.

For a moment it felt like we had picked up a conversation that had merely been paused.

The purpose that once connected us had ended, but the connection itself remained.

Nobody owed anyone constant calls. Nobody had to prove that they still cared. We simply sat together, talked, laughed, and slipped back into a familiarity that distance had never completely erased.

It reminded me of something I hadn’t understood when I first wrote this.

Maybe what disappears is not always the relationship itself.

Sometimes it is only the shared life around it.

The ordinary days end. The classrooms disappear. The family gatherings become rare. The festivals become shorter. Life pulls us toward new people and new places.

But every now and then, a reunion reminds us that some bonds continue quietly beneath the surface, even when they are no longer part of our everyday lives.

Maybe conversations don’t disappear because people stop caring.

Maybe they disappear because we no longer wake up inside the same ordinary days.

To all the friends and cousins I don’t speak to anymore but still carry with me in quiet corners of my heart, this is for you.

I hope life has been kind to you.

And if all we ever become are birthday wishes and festival greetings, I hope you know that there was once a time when you were an ordinary part of my everyday life.

I will always be grateful that our ordinary days existed.

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Sometimes a book arrives before we are ready for its message.

About a year ago, after seeing it recommended everywhere on Instagram, I bought The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. They said it contained wisdom about happiness, wealth, success, and life itself.

But when I opened it, I couldn’t connect with it.

I tried. I really did.

Yet every time I picked it up, it felt boring. The ideas didn’t stay with me. The words felt distant, as if they were meant for someone else. Even yesterday, after almost a year, I tried reading it again and felt exactly the same.

Before any fans of the book judge me, please read till the end.

Because this isn’t an article about why a book is good or bad.

It’s about timing.

We often hear people say “right person, wrong time” or “right person at the right time.” But lately, I have been thinking about books in the same way.

Maybe the greatest blessing isn’t finding the right person at the right time.

Maybe it’s finding the right book at the right time.

A few years ago, I found a copy of The Alchemist while searching through a pile of abandoned books in my hostel. I knew the book was popular, so I kept it with me.

And then I ignored it.

For years, it simply sat on my shelf.

Recently near the end of my graduation, I finally decided to read it. At first, it felt normal. It was interesting, but nothing extraordinary.

Then something changed.

Somewhere in the final chapters, a few lines struck me differently. The ideas felt personal. It was as if the book was speaking directly to me.

I cannot fully explain what happened but book didn’t suddenly become better.

I had changed.

For years, The Alchemist sat in my shelf while I went through college, uncertainty, and all the questions that come with growing up. When I finally opened it near the end of my graduation, its ideas felt meaningful because I was finally ready for them.

That made me wonder how many books we judge too early.

Sometimes a book arrives before we are ready for its message. We read a few chapters, feel nothing, and put it away. Then years later, we pick it up again and think

“How did I miss all of this the first time?”

The book is exactly the same.

The words are exactly the same.

But the reader is different.

Maybe that is why some people love The Alchemist while others find it boring. Maybe that is why I still cannot connect with The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

It isn’t always about whether a book is good or bad.

Sometimes it is simply about whether it has arrived at the right moment in our lives or not.

Who knows?

Maybe ten years from now, I will pull The Almanack of Naval Ravikant from my shelf, open a random page, and finally understand why so many people recommended it.

Maybe I will discover wisdom that I am currently unable to see.

Maybe not.

But I have stopped feeling guilty about unfinished books.

Because I have come to believe that every book has its own time.

And when that time comes, the book does not change.

We do.

And sometimes, that’s all it takes.

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It’s Never About People It’s About How You See Yourself

For a long time, I was someone who waited for permission.

Permission to try something new, permission to speak, permission to believe that what I wanted mattered. Validation became a habit, not because I enjoyed depending on it, but because it was how I had learned to move through life. Before making decisions, I looked around to see what others thought. Their approval reassured me, while their disapproval could completely shake my confidence.

At the same time, there was another part of me that disliked this dependence. There was a voice inside me that wanted to do things simply because my heart wanted them. I wanted to trust myself, but I didn’t know how.

When I started my bachelor’s degree, I got an opportunity to participate in an anthology. As someone who constantly sought validation, I asked my roommates whether I should do it or not. Thankfully, I listened to the part of me that wanted to say yes.

That one decision opened a door I never knew existed.

I started writing more, submitting pieces to different anthologies. Some of them were accepted and published. Around the same time, I also created an Instagram account dedicated to my writing. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I was building something that truly belonged to me.

Then, one phone call changed everything.

One of my cousins called and questioned why I was spending time writing when I should be studying, why I wasn’t only focusing on my studies. Maybe he thought he was giving good advice, but I wasn’t at a stage in my life where I could separate another person’s opinion from my own sense of self.

His words stayed with me.

I started doubting myself again. I deleted my writing account. The questions returned.

What if they’re right?

What if I am wasting my time?

What will people think?

Looking back, I realized that those questions had haunted me for years. The fear of making mistakes was manageable, but the fear of people’s opinions was much harder to overcome.

Then something unexpected happened.

One of the anthologies I contributed to got published and I received a compliment from someone who had read my work. It wasn’t something superficial. It was about my words, words I had written in silence, never imagining they would resonate with another person.

Someone had read them and felt understood.

That moment changed something in me.

It wasn’t because I had finally found the right validation. It was because I realized how much I had allowed other people’s opinions to determine my choices. If one negative comment had the power to stop me, why shouldn’t one encouraging comment have the power to restart me?

Slowly, I began shifting from seeking validation to asking for perspectives. I still ask for opinions, but I stopped treating them as instructions. Eventually, I started trusting my instincts more than my fears.

It wasn’t an easy journey.

Overthinking became exhausting. Doubting myself became exhausting. Constantly wondering what people would think became exhausting.

But somewhere along the way, I understood something important.

It was never entirely about people.

People will always have opinions. Some will criticize you. Some will speak from wisdom. Some will encourage you. Some will question you. Some will project their fears onto your dreams. Their opinions are often shaped by their experiences and understanding of the world.

That doesn’t mean every criticism should be ignored. Sometimes feedback helps us grow, but not every opinion deserves the power to define who we are.

And the real question is:

How do you see yourself?

Because people’s words become most powerful when they echo the doubts we already carry within us.

My cousin’s opinion didn’t affect me because he had authority over my dreams, but because I had not yet learned how to trust myself.

Today, I still listen to people. I still value advice. But I no longer wait for permission to pursue what matters to me.

The goal isn’t to stop caring about what others think. We are human. We seek connection, encouragement.

The goal is to stop handing over the responsibility of defining our worth.

People may offer opinions, but they cannot decide who you are. That choice has always belonged to you.

And perhaps one of the most important parts of becoming yourself is realizing that you don’t need permission to pursue the things that make you feel alive.

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Recently, I watched Life of Pi. Among all its beautiful scenes, one stayed with me long after the credits rolled: the island.

For those who haven’t watched the film, the island appears when the protagonist is exhausted from surviving storms, hunger, loneliness, and fear while being stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger. For a while, the island saves him. It offers food, fresh water, safety, and rest.

But eventually, he realizes something terrifying

If he stays, the island will consume him.

When I first watched this scene, I thought the island represented temptation. Not evil in an obvious way, but something much more subtle Comfort.

A place where you survive but don’t truly live.

A place where you stop moving toward your destination because staying feels easier than continuing.

And I think many of us have islands in our own lives.

Just a day before this realization, I was talking to my friends about how difficult it becomes to step out of our comfort zone. One of them admitted that even if opportunities came their way, they weren’t sure they would have the courage to take them anymore.

Comfort had become familiar.

Familiar had become safe.

And safe had slowly started to feel like enough.

The truth is, I had spent the last few days living on my own island too.

After graduating, I found telling myself that I would begin tomorrow. Convincing myself that one more day wouldn’t matter.

And maybe that’s how it begins.

After reaching a milestone, after surviving a difficult season we finally arrive at a place where we can breathe.

And we deserve that rest.

But sometimes, without noticing, rest turns into residence.

We tell ourselves:

“I will start tomorrow.”

“I just need a little more time.”

“One more week won’t hurt.”

The island doesn’t trap us all at once.

It does so gradually.

Until one day, we realize that we have stopped moving altogether.

What frightened me about that island wasn’t that it was dangerous.

It’s that it was comfortable.

The island wasn’t trying to kill him.

It was trying to convince him to stay.

And maybe that’s how some dreams quietly disappear.

Not through failure.

But through comfort.

But there was another lesson hidden in that story.

I kept thinking about how he arrived at that island in the first place.

He was exhausted.

Both physically and emotionally.

He had fought for so long.

And I think many of us know that feeling.

There are seasons in life when we are simply tired.

Sometimes, without even realizing it, we ask life for a sign.

Not necessarily a miracle.

Just something small.

A conversation.

A book.

A friend.

A memory.

A random moment of peace.

Something that whispers:

“Keep going.”

The island didn’t solve Pi’s life.

It didn’t take him to his destination.

It simply gave him enough strength to continue the journey.

Sometimes, that’s what miracles look like.

Not solutions but Encouragement.

Coming out of your comfort zone isn’t easy.

I say this as someone who spent the last fifteen days living in one.

But sometimes all it takes is one story, one conversation to remind you that you still have places to go.

That movie became my sign.

If you are waiting for yours, maybe this essay can be yours.

Maybe you are on an island right now.

Maybe you have been carrying more than anyone realizes.

Maybe you have confused exhaustion with arrival.

If so, let this be your reminder:

Rest if you need to.

Heal if you must.

But don’t forget the dreams you had before tiredness convinced you to settle.

The island was never meant to be your home it was where you stopped to recover.

Your destination is still ahead of you.

And if you have been waiting for a sign to take the first step again,

perhaps this is it.

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Hello friends,

I am writing this quick note tonight to share a moment of immense gratitude. Life in Little Things has grown into a community of over 1,640 readers, and knowing that my quiet reflections on memories and moments resonate with you means everything to me.

As many of you know, Substack’s native monetization options are not available for writers based here in India. Because of this, several readers have warmly reached out over the last few days asking for an independent way to support this publication.

To make that possible, I have set up a simple, direct space. If my essays have ever brought you a pocket of peace or reminded you of a fond memory, you can now warmly support by my writing just by click below

☕ Support my writing & Buy me a tea

Everything on Life in Little Things will remain 100% free to read, just as it has always been. There is absolutely no pressure your presence in my inbox is already a beautiful gift. But for those who wish to extend an extra bit of encouragement to help keep these slow crafted stories going, your kindness means the world to me.

Thank you for sharing a small part of your week with my words. I look forward to sending you my next essay very soon.

With warmth,

Pravalika
Life in Little Things

I was watching a film about communal riots, and by the end of it, I was no longer thinking about religion.

I was thinking about people.

I was thinking about the passengers on a bus who only wanted to reach home. I was thinking about mothers protecting their children, families waiting for their loved ones, and ordinary people suddenly finding themselves trapped in a nightmare they never created.

And I kept asking myself a question.

When someone asks “What is your religion?” in an ordinary conversation we answer without much thought. We say we are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, or something else. It is a simple question.

But what happens when someone asks that same question while holding hatred in their heart?

What happens when the answer determines whether you will be alive or dead?

That thought broke my heart.

Because in that moment I want to say something else.

I want to say that I am human.

You are human.

We have the same fears, the same hopes, the same tears, and the same blood running through our veins.

Before anything else, we are human beings.

What hurts me most about communal violence is that the people who suffer the most are often not the people who started it. Someone somewhere commits an act of violence, and suddenly innocent people who had nothing to do with it are forced to pay the price.

How can that ever be justified?

I know large scale riots are not as common as they were before but the hatred still exists. Sometimes it appears in jokes. Sometimes in stereotypes. Sometimes in suspicion. Sometimes in the way we look at one another before we even know each other.

And I often wonder why.

Why do we give so much importance to labels that were mostly decided by chance?

None of us chose where we were born.

None of us chose our first language.

None of us chose the religion we were introduced to as children.

Yet people are willing to hate each other over these things.

I am not saying that religion is unimportant.

Faith matters. It gives comfort, meaning, community, and hope. People should be free to love their religion, practice it, and take pride in it.

But there is a difference between loving your faith and hating someone else’s.

The moment our religion becomes more important than another person’s life, something has gone terribly wrong.

I often think about God as a destination and religions as different paths leading toward it.

One person sees God as Krishna.

Another sees God as Shiva.

Another prays to Allah.

Another finds God through Jesus.

Someone else sees God as Durga.

The names may be different, but all of them teach compassion, kindness, humility, and love.

The paths may not be the same, but the destination is.

If that is true, then why do we spend so much time fighting over the roads and so little time caring for the travelers?

Perhaps friendship is what makes me ask that question.

A Hindu can have a Muslim friend.

A Muslim can have a Christian friend.

A Christian can have a Hindu friend.

In moments of peace, these relationships feel natural. We laugh together, share meals, celebrate each other, and support one another through difficult times.

Yet when conflict erupts people suddenly expect those labels to matter more than years of friendship, trust, and love.

Why?

Why should a name be more important than a person?

Why should a label matter more than a life?

I do not have answers to these questions.

I only know what I feel.

I felt grief for humanity.

Because every time we reduce a person to a label, we forget that they laugh as we laugh, cry as we cry, and dream as we dream.

And Maybe that is what I want to remember most.

Not that some people are Hindu and some are Muslim.

Not that some people pray differently than I do.

But that before all those labels and differences, there is something more important.

A human being standing in front of another human being.

And that should be enough.

I know one essay will not end hatred.

I know one speech about humanity will not suddenly change the world.

But I still hope people will think about it.

Really think about it.

The next time you meet someone whose religion, language, caste, culture, or beliefs are different from yours, pause for a moment and remember that before all those labels, there is a human being standing in front of you.

A person who laughs, cries, loves, fears, dreams, and hopes just as you do.

That may not change the world overnight.

But Maybe every change begins with a single thought.

So this is all I ask

Think about it.

Please.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

The world is one family.

Today is my birthday.

Birthdays usually make us look back. We think about the year that passed, the lessons it carried, the people we met, and the paths we didn’t expect to walk.

But this year, my thoughts keep returning to the last few weeks.

Just 21 days ago, Life in Little Things was nothing more than a quiet idea. I wanted to create a small corner of the internet where I could write about ordinary moments, feelings that linger, memories that stay with us, and the little things that often go unnoticed.

I had no idea who would find it.

I had no idea if anyone would stay.

And yet, today, on my birthday, I am writing this letter knowing that more than 1000 people have chosen to be here.

What makes this gift so special is not the number itself.

It is knowing that this space has somehow found the right people.

People who pause for small moments.

People who carry stories in their hearts.

People who understand that sometimes the most meaningful parts of life are the quietest ones.

Over the last few weeks, Life in Little Things has travelled far beyond anything I have imagined, reaching readers across 63 countries. Every subscription, every kind reply, every moment spent reading has reminded me that words have a way of finding the people who need them.

For someone who started with a blank page and a simple hope, that feels extraordinary.

So today, I simply want to say thank you.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for making room for my words in your inbox.

Thank you for helping this little corner of the internet feel like home.

I am spending part of my birthday weekend working on the next reflections and stories that will soon arrive in your inboxes.

Until then, thank you for giving me the most beautiful birthday gift I could have asked for.

With warmth,

Pravalika

Life in Little Things

P.S. If you would ever like to connect outside the newsletter, I am usually sharing little moments and reflections on Instagram at @heartverse.bypravalika and for fellow book lovers I have a bookish corner called quite_storiesclub where i write about books, and stories that stay with us long after we trun the last page.

Be careful with your words because you don’t know how many times they repeat in someone’s head.

I read this quote on Instagram and it made think and relate to it

There is an interesting way we often divide the world into two categories: people who move on, and people who overthink. I think I belong to the second category, and I want to tell you what it feels like to live there.

Even now, I remember sentences spoken casually by people who probably don’t even remember saying them. I remember things from five years ago, sometimes even longer. I remember the exact words, the tone, and the setting. Because for me, words do not leave when the conversation ends. They stay.

And this can happen in two ways. Let me explain

Sometimes, words become a lifeline.

I was in ninth grade, and I was an underconfident student who tried her best not to be noticed. I rarely spoke in class, and I wanted to take up as little space as possible.

But I had a habit of saying “thank you” for everything. Even for the smallest help, I would thank people. If teacher handed me an additional answer sheet during an exam, I would say, “Thank you.”

One of my teachers noticed that.

After one exam, during class, he began praising a student in front of everyone. He didn’t reveal who it was at first. Then at the end he said my name.

He told me that he had rarely seen someone my age express gratitude so naturally. He said that my parents should be proud of how they had raised me and that they were fortunate to have me.

Years have passed since that day, but I still remember those words.

Because those words gave me validation I didn’t know I needed.

Those words helped me see myself differently. They made me feel comfortable in my own skin. They reminded me that being myself was enough.

And here I am today because if not for those words, I don’t know whether I would have become the person I am now.

But words can wound too.

During a difficult period in my life, when my health was failing and I wasn’t performing well academically my father told me that I was a burden to him.

I don’t think he remembers saying it.

But I do.

I remember that exact word.

And sometimes even now, it still hurts.

The older I grow, the more I realize that we rarely remember every detail of what happened, but we do remember how they made us feel.

A single sentence can become an anchor.

Or a wound.

Or a lifeline.

How many of us are still living inside rooms we left years ago because of the words spoken there?

I don't mean to say we should speak less but it’s a gentle reminder to speak with deeper awareness and compassion.

Because we never truly know which sentence of ours will become someone else’s inner voice.

For years, I thought remembering everything was a weakness but now I wonder because it simply made me more aware of the weight words carry.

Maybe that awareness is the reason I think carefully before I speak. Maybe it is why I try to choose kindness, even in small moments, because I know that words can stay with people long after we have forgotten saying them.

So this week, I want to leave you with the same quote that stopped me and made me think

Be careful with your words because you don’t know how many times they repeat in someone’s head.

Because maybe the words we forget are the very words someone else build their entire life around.

A woman born from fire still speaks to a girl living thousands of years later.

I do not know why Draupadi keeps returning to my thoughts, why she keeps me awake at night, but perhaps it is because I see in her a woman the world never truly understood. History remembered her beauty but forgot her wisdom. It remembered the accusations but overlooked her courage.

And maybe that is why I feel compelled to write about her not to tell her story again, but to remind people that she was much more than what they were taught to believe.

The woman born from fire.

Society remembers her as the woman with five husbands. Some remember her as the woman who caused a war. But very few remember that she was also a queen, a strategist, a devoted friend, and one of the most intelligent women of her time. Her sharp mind was often overshadowed by descriptions of her beauty.

Before she became a queen, she was also once a girl with dreams and aspirations.

A girl who hoped.

A girl who desired love, belonging, and dignity.

A girl whose life was constantly shaped by circumstances beyond her control.

She stood beside kings, helped build an empire, and carried burdens no one should have expected to bear. Despite her position, she had no real safety. The very society she served failed to protect her when she needed it the most.

There is a quote from A Thousand Splendid Suns that often reminds me of Draupadi:

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”

Across centuries, Draupadi has been blamed for a war totally born from greed, pride, and men’s egos. The humiliation she endured was forgotten, while her anger was remembered. Her suffering was questioned, while the actions of those who wronged her were justified.

She became one of the most misunderstood women in history.

And still, she stood.

Draupadi never accepted humiliation as her destiny. She questioned injustice when she was expected to remain silent. She demanded answers in halls filled with powerful men who looked away. She refused to surrender her self-respect, even when the entire world wanted to strip it from her.

She was fearless because pain never stopped her from standing up for herself.

Maybe that is why women today continue to find themselves in her story.

The battles may have changed, but the struggle to be heard, respected, and understood still remains.

I do not admire Draupadi because she suffered.

I admire her because she refused to let suffering define her.

I admire her because she never allowed other people’s judgments to determine her worth.

I admire her because she continued to rise, despite grief, despite humiliation, despite loss.

Maybe that is why a woman born thousands of years ago still resonates with a girl living today.

Because Draupadi reminds us that courage is not the absence of fear.

It is choosing dignity when submission is easier.

It is speaking when silence is expected.

It is preserving your sense of self in a world eager to define you by its own narratives.

Strong women are often remembered by the accusations against them rather than the truths they lived.

Draupadi was not what many believe her to be.

She was more.

She was intelligent.

She was compassionate.

She was fierce.

She was flawed.

She was resilient.

And above all, she was a woman who never lost her self-respect.

She was born from fire, but it was not the fire of her birth that made her extraordinary.

It was the fire she carried within.

The fire that refused to bow before injustice.

The fire that refused to surrender her dignity.

The fire that continues to inspire those who choose to stand for themselves.

And perhaps that is why, in the quiet hours of the night, I still think of Draupadi.

Not as the woman history blamed.

But as the woman who taught me that no matter who stands against you, you must never stop standing for yourself.

There are moments in life that don’t begin and end on a single day and my farewell was one of them.

I usually avoid loud celebrations and big gatherings. They never felt like my space. But farewell was different. It wasn’t just another event. It felt like closure. A quiet permission to acknowledge what had already become part of me for four years.

And maybe that’s why I didn’t want to miss it.

But in a way, my farewell didn’t begin on the farewell day.

It began a month earlier.

I started carrying my diary everywhere. Slowly, it became something more than just pages and ink. I asked people to write in it friends, classmates even those small connections we don’t always name but still feel. Some wrote memories of college, some wrote about our bond, some wrote about me. Every page felt like a small attempt to preserve something that time would otherwise erase.

I wasn’t just collecting words. I was trying to preserve people.

As the farewell day came closer, I prepared myself in ways I didn’t fully understand then. I made farewell cards. I took photos with people. I made sure I didn’t leave without a handshake or a hug depending on what our bond naturally felt like. It was like I was quietly trying to keep a record of everything before it slipped away.

And then the day arrived.

It looked simple from the outside smiles, photos, goodbyes, laughter. But inside, it was something entirely different.

Because it wasn’t just about leaving people.

It was about leaving a place where I had existed for four years.

A place where I had versions of myself that may never exist again.

A place that, without me noticing, had become comfort.

And suddenly, I no longer had a place in the place I once belonged to.

That realization doesn’t hit all at once. It settles slowly. And then it stays.

It took me almost twenty days to come back to myself after that day. Not because something dramatic happened, but because nothing stayed the same after it ended.

Maybe that is what goodbyes really feel like. We can never be like that again. The versions of us ended with our farewell.

Maybe from the outside, it looks like an ordinary farewell.

But for me, it wasn’t an event.

It was an ending I had started living long before it arrived.