I was on the phone with a school friend recently, and we had been chatting for a good part of an hour when he suddenly asked, “Do you remember that night when we put crackers outside the Principal’s office during night classes?” That was enough to take us straight back to our school days, and before we knew it, we were lost in memories of the mischief we used to get up to.

We had sprinted back to our classroom and dived into our seats just a split second before the crackers went off. The thunderous bang shook the classroom window panes and echoed down the corridor, and in the stillness of the night it sounded even louder. The Principal was furious and came looking for the culprit or culprits, going from class to class with glaring eyes. Everyone knew it was us, yet nobody ratted on us. That was the boys’ code.

The price of their silence was heavy. The entire hostel was gated, and all outings were cancelled until the school break. Everyone, from the juniors to the seniors, cursed us under their breath, but they never gave us up. To compensate for the house arrest, we ordered a little feast for them, buns, samosas and pastries. They happily devoured the food, calling us absolute idiots between bites, but with absolutely no malice.

Another time, the three of us bunked school after night prep to watch a movie. The night show usually started around 9:30, while our prep got over at 8:30. We would rush back to our dormitory, change and get into bed, and our matron would take a last look around before going to her room. Once we heard her door latch shut, we would get out of bed and quietly tiptoe out of the dorm. We had made strategic openings in the fence, hidden in the foliage, and would slip out and sprint to the theatre.

On one occasion, we were spotted during the interval by a school teacher who had also come to watch the movie. We desperately tried to hide by slowly sliding down in our seats so as not to be seen, but unfortunately we were a little late. The teacher walked over and said, “What the heck are you guys doing here? You know you are out of bounds. Meet me outside after the show,” and walked away.

We were caught in a bind and didn’t know what to make of his actions. If he wanted, he could have asked us to leave immediately and report back to him or the Principal in the morning. We hoped he would let us off with a warning.

Anyway, our movie was ruined, and we couldn’t leave in the middle because we were supposed to meet him after the show ended. Our imagination was running wild and extreme thoughts crossed our minds. We would get a hiding, or worse, we would get expelled.

It was past midnight when the movie got over. We walked out quietly with the crowd, hoping and praying that our teacher had forgotten about us and left. Nothing like that happened. Mr Shepherd, along with his wife, was waiting for us. Our hearts sank.

God was making sure we were taught a lesson, I thought.

We walked up to him and greeted his wife. “Good morning, Ma’am.”

“The morning is not good for the three of you.”

“Sorry, Sir. It will never happen again, we are very sorry.”

“I will not be sorry to see you go,” he said, with anger written all over his face. “I am going to write personally to your parents to come and take you back home. We don’t need boys like you who spoil the discipline of the school. Meet me after breakfast tomorrow morning in my chamber.”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir,” was all we could mumble.

“Now get cracking and get back to school, and don’t let me catch you loitering around.”

Without a whimper, we started running back to school. As we reached the school gate, we saw him standing there, waiting for us. We stood in front of him with our heads hanging, waiting for another scolding.

“Have your luggage packed before you come to see me.”

Before we could open our mouths to say anything, he turned around and walked away.

We were in a panic, unable to move. We stared at each other in disbelief and stood there for what seemed like ages before slowly turning around and walking back to our dorms. We were unable to sleep, thinking about the impending consequences. I kept praying, “Please God, get us out of this one. I’ll never do it again.”

The next morning, after breakfast, the three of us stood outside Mr Shepherd’s chamber. He had been waiting for us.

“Have you packed your luggage?”

“No, Sir.”

We were very sorry and pleaded with folded hands, literally begging for forgiveness. “We’ll never do it again, Sir.”

“No sorries,” he said sternly. “You hooligans, you deserve the strictest of punishment,” and asked us to follow him to the Principal’s office.

Now we were in desperate panic. We literally held his hand and begged him for one last chance. He stopped, turned and looked at us with glaring eyes and, in a stern voice, said, “Consider this as a final warning from me. If I ever catch you doing anything against school regulations, or I get any complaint against you from anyone, that day will be your last day in school.”

“Now get the hell out of my sight and never let me catch you doing anything wrong.”

We thanked him, apologised again and walked out quickly before he changed his mind. Once outside, we looked at each other with a mischievous smile, shook hands, hugged and whistled off to our class.

For the next fortnight, we were on our best behaviour.

A month later, on a Sunday, the three of us were sitting under a tree when I said with a grin, “It’s been a month. How about a movie tonight?”

Looking back now, it is difficult to believe how quickly we went from being terrified of being expelled to planning our next outing. That was the innocence of those days. We would get into trouble, worry ourselves sick, promise never to do it again, and then, before long, be back to our old ways. We were young, we were carefree, and somehow every day seemed to hold another adventure.

Whenever I think of those years, I am reminded of Mary Hopkin’s Those Were the Days. There is something about that song that takes me straight back to those times, when we laughed away the hours, got into mischief, and truly believed those days would never end. They did. But the laughter, didn’t.

“Once upon a time there was a tavern

Where we used to raise a glass or two

Remember how we laughed away the hours

Think of all the great things we would do

Those were the days, my friend

We thought they’d never end

We’d sing and dance forever and a day

We’d live the life we choose

We’d fight and never lose

For we were young and sure to have our way.

La la la la la la

La la la la la la

La la la la La la la la la la”.

I often come back to this thought: is it the stars that decide our fate, or is it our own effort and the choices we make?

I have mentioned in my bio that I was in the business of film distribution and exhibition. As a film distributor, like everyone else in the business, I was always on the lookout for films that could be bought at a bargain price.

One such opportunity came my way when a film broker told me about a film starring a very popular actor who was going through a rough patch at the time. Because of his circumstances, the film was available at what seemed like a bargain price.

I immediately started doing the maths. If I took advantage of the situation and offered the producer the complete payment upfront, I thought I might be able to get some more concessions out of him and improve my profit. Even at that price, I calculated that if I gave the film to various theatres for screening at the bare minimum, I could easily recover my investment and still make a decent profit.

It was easier said than done. The broker had mentioned the same deal to a couple of other people, and they were just as interested as I was. After a lot of negotiations, I finally managed to close the deal, although at a slightly higher price than I had hoped for. Under the circumstances, I still felt I had got myself a bargain.

My colleagues congratulated me, and I threw a party to celebrate. The conversation throughout the day was about what a great deal I had struck and what a sure-shot money spinner the film was going to be.

The next day, I got down to preparing for the release.

I contacted theatre chains, expecting that I would have to convince them to take the film. To my surprise, I didn’t have to convince anyone. Word had already spread that it was a sure-shot hit and that everyone would benefit from it. I was able to finalise and sign the best chain of theatres. Publicity was in full swing, the feedback we were getting was good, and even the advance bookings were showing a healthy trend. Everything seemed to be falling into place.

Finally, the release day arrived.

There were long lines outside the theatres, people waiting impatiently with their tickets, pushing and jostling for the doors to open. Finally, the moment came when the fate of the film, and mine along with it, was about to be revealed.

I waited with bated breath for the audience’s verdict. The doors opened and the crowd pushed its way in, scrambling to find their seats. The lights dimmed. The cinema hall went completely quiet as everyone waited for the big screen to light up and show their favourite star.

And then he appeared. The crowd erupted. Fans cheered loudly as the main character delivered a famous line that everyone already knew by heart.

I was sitting in my office, receiving a steady stream of positive reviews from the different theatres. My colleagues were hugging and high-fiving each other, and my phone was buzzing constantly with congratulatory messages from friends and people in the industry.

Things looked fantastic. About thirty minutes into the film, a friend who was watching it called me.“The movie feels dated. Old wine in a new bottle.” I was baffled. Until then, almost everything I had heard had been positive. At the same time, I respected his opinion. I didn’t know what to say.“Call me back in fifteen minutes,” was all I could manage.

Another phone call came in. Positive feedback.

Now I was confused. I couldn’t get what my friend had said out of my head. Was he right? Were the others simply reacting to the initial excitement of seeing a much-loved star back on the screen? I decided to wait until the interval. By then, I thought, I would have a better picture.

The interval arrived, and I waited impatiently for my friend Jassi’s call. The phone rang. I picked it up before the first ring had even finished. “Listen,” he said. “Just accept any offer you are getting from the theatre owners. Don’t bargain. This movie is not working. The audience is starting to get restless.” My heart sank and my mind went blank. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.

After a couple of minutes, I pulled myself together and called my manager and his subordinate. By then, they had also got an idea of what was happening and were as puzzled as I was. I instructed them to immediately visit every office holding theatre chains and sign up as many theatres in different cities as they could. Don’t be adamant about the price, I told them. Be flexible.

I had to recover as much of my impending loss as I possibly could. By then, the word had started spreading. Everyone was calling it, “Soda water.” That was the terminology we used for a film that showed a lot of promise but fizzled out as soon as it was released, much like a bottle of soda after you pop it open.

By late evening, everyone had gone home. The office, which had been buzzing all day, was now deserted. The film was a big disappointment. A school friend and I were the only two people sitting there, silent and pensive.

“Don’t fret over it,” said my friend. “You did everything possible. Maybe it’s just bad luck. The movie had everything going for it - the stars, the publicity, the buzz, the makers, everything. Maybe your luck just ran out.”

I looked at him sheepishly and hesitated for a moment. Then I said, “Remember what our English teacher said to me when I learned the wrong chapter for the exam and blamed my luck?” We looked at each other and blurted in unison : “The fault, dear Bawa, is not in your stars, but in yourself.”

And suddenly, it hit me. I had got so carried away by the buzz around the film that I had not done the one thing I was supposed to do. I had not watched the preview. I had committed the cardinal sin of film distribution. I had signed on the dotted line without even watching the film I was buying. That was the one thing I was expected to do. There were no stars to blame this time. I had simply not done my job.

I had been so convinced that I had struck a great bargain that I never stopped to ask the most basic question: Was the film actually any good?

Looking back, I realise that this was not just about one bad film or one bad business decision. It made me think about how often we blame things outside ourselves when something goes wrong.

There was a time when I blamed my stars for almost everything. If a film failed, my Sade Sati (the planetary phase supposedly responsible for bringing difficulties) was responsible. If a friendship ended, perhaps our stars were not aligned. If I woke up feeling miserable, I could always blame the shifting alignment of the planets.

Blaming the stars for everything negative in my life felt incredibly safe. If my life was being directed by forces outside my control, then my failures weren’t really my fault. I was simply a victim of bad timing and poor luck.

But that film taught me to look a little closer before blaming the stars. Sometimes things are simply beyond our control. But sometimes, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that our own choices have something to do with what happened. And perhaps that is the uncomfortable part. It is much easier to blame our stars than to ask ourselves what we could have done differently.

How much of your life is spent preparing for criticism that never actually arrives? At seventy, I still find myself falling into the trap of asking, “What will people say?” - a question that recently kept me from enjoying the most comfortable pair of pyjamas I have ever owned.

It all started a few years ago when my daughter returned from a trip abroad and brought me a gift, a pair of bright, colourful, flowery pyjamas. My first reaction was not happiness or excitement. Instead, I looked at them and thought, “At my age, how can I wear these?” So I folded them neatly and kept them inside my cupboard, untouched, for almost two years.

Then one evening, for reasons I no longer remember, I decided to wear them.

And do you know what happened? Nothing. Nobody laughed. Nobody questioned me. Nobody pointed a finger. The world continued exactly as it was before. In fact, they turned out to be one of the most comfortable pairs of pyjamas I had ever owned.

Looking back, I realised something important. The problem was never my age. The problem was a rule I had created in my own mind about what someone my age should or should not do. Nobody had stopped me from wearing them. Nobody had told me I could not. I had simply stopped myself.

Over the years, I have come to understand that some of the hardest prisons to escape are not the ones made of bricks, iron bars, and locked doors secured by armed guards. Those prisons are visible. Everyone can see when a person is trapped.

The more dangerous ones are the prisons we quietly build inside our own minds. There are no walls to point at and no guards standing outside. We carry them with us everywhere, often without even realising that we are the ones holding the keys.

These prisons are built slowly, one thought at a time. “I can’t do this.” “I am too old now.” “It is too late for me.” We repeat these sentences so often that they begin to feel like facts, when in reality they are often just fears and assumptions we have carried for years.

As we grow older, we start placing limits on ourselves. We decide what is suitable for our age, how we should behave, what we should wear, and what new things we should stop trying. Somewhere along the way, we forget that growing older does not mean we have to stop experiencing life.

I once read a line that stayed with me: “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” The more I think about it, the more true it feels. How much of our lives are spent worrying about things that never come to pass? We imagine people judging us and prepare for criticism that never arrives.

That is the strange thing about the prisons we create in our minds. The doors are usually open, but we convince ourselves that they are locked. We allow fear and other people’s opinions to decide what we can and cannot do.

For two years, those colourful pyjamas sat quietly in my cupboard. They weren’t waiting for me to grow younger. They were waiting for me to stop listening to the jailor in my head.

At seventy, I have learned that life is too precious to spend inside invisible walls. We should still try, still learn, still laugh, and still allow ourselves small moments of happiness, no matter what age we are.

A prison made of stone can keep a person away from the world. But the prison inside the mind can be more dangerous, because it can keep a person away from their own life.

“When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother, "What will I be?"

"Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"

Here's what she said to me…

Que será, será

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que será, será

What will be, will be"

The moment I hear those words, Doris Day's warm, reassuring voice comes floating back from my childhood.

It amazes me that a song written over seventy years ago can still feel so relevant today. Hidden inside those simple lyrics is a truth that every generation eventually discovers for itself.

"The future's not ours to see."

We spend such a large part of our lives trying to find out the one thing life stubbornly refuses to tell us. We want to know if we'll be successful, wealthy, healthy or famous - preferably all four. To satisfy that curiosity, we've consulted astrologers, fortune tellers, tarot card readers, palmists, crystal balls, parrots that pick cards and, more recently, people on YouTube who seem to have predicted everything from the stock market to the weather. Every generation has found its own way of trying to peek behind the curtain.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if we actually knew what was waiting for us.

Imagine knowing, at twenty, where you would live, whom you would marry, which dreams would come true and which disappointments would quietly shape the person you would become.

Would you still take the same risks? Would you fall in love so easily if you already knew how the story ended? Would you leave a secure job, start a business or move to a new city if someone had already handed you the last page?

I don't think I would.

When I look back at my own life, I realise that none of the moments that truly changed me announced themselves in advance. The people who became important to me first appeared to be ordinary acquaintances. The setbacks that once felt like disasters quietly nudged me towards something better. Some decisions I was so sure about turned out to be completely wrong, while some of the disappointments I struggled to accept eventually became blessings.

If someone had come to me then and whispered, "Don't worry. This will all make sense fifteen years from now," I might have worried a little less. Then again, knowing myself, I would probably have found something else to worry about.

Perhaps that's why life never tells us what's coming next. If it did, we might stop taking chances. We'd stop being surprised. We'd stop discovering things about ourselves that only uncertainty can reveal.

I've slowly realised that the future is a story we're supposed to live. So these days, whenever I find myself worrying about tomorrow, I hear that familiar melody playing somewhere in the back of my mind.

Que será, será.

Whatever will be, will be.

I'm still curious about tomorrow, but I've learnt not to rush the story.

The other evening a few old friends and I were sitting together over a couple of drinks, doing what friends of our vintage usually do, gossip. We began with the usual small talk about cricket, politics and old times, but before long the conversation became more personal. One friend spoke about the problems at home, another complained about work, someone else about money, and soon all of us were taking turns listing the burdens we were carrying. Through all this, one friend sat quietly listening with a smile on his face.

We finally asked him what he found so amusing. If anyone had reason to complain, it was him. We all knew the struggles he had faced in life, yet he looked more at peace than the rest of us put together.

He smiled, took a slow sip of his whisky looked around the table as though weighing each of us up, placed his glass down and said, emphasising each word, "The path to inner peace begins with four words...." NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM"

For a few seconds there was complete silence, and then the whole table burst into laughter. One of us asked, "Are you serious? Is that your answer to everything?"

He poured himself another drink and said, "Not everything...only the things that aren't yours to carry. Most of you spend more time worrying about other people's problems than your own."

Then he pointed at one friend and said, "You're constantly getting worked up over politicians. Every day somebody says something stupid and your blood pressure goes up. Tell me honestly, can you change any of them?. If not, why are you giving them so much space in your head?"

Looking at another friend, he said, "And you... you have advice for everyone. You tell your neighbours how to raise their children, your relatives how to invest their money, and your friends how to run their businesses. Your own business is struggling, yet somehow you still have enough wisdom left for everyone else except yourself."

We were already laughing when he turned towards another friend, looked at him for a few seconds, opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, then shook his head and smiled.

"No," he said. "With you, the less said the better."

The table exploded again.

Once the laughter settled, he became serious.

"Think about it. We worry about celebrities who don't know we exist, neighbours who park badly, relatives who never listen to us anyway, WhatsApp messages that begin with 'Forwarded many times,' and arguments on social media with complete strangers whom we don't know and will never meet. By the end of the day we've solved half the country's problems except the ones waiting for us at home."

Nobody interrupted him because, deep down, we knew he was right.

He wasn't saying we should stop caring about people. Our family, our close friends and those who genuinely depend on us are our responsibility, and we should stand by them whenever they need us. What he meant was that somewhere along the way we have started carrying worries that were never ours in the first place. We have become unpaid counsellors, political analysts, financial experts and social commentators, exhausting ourselves over things we neither control nor influence.

As I drove home that night, his words stayed with me. Not because they were rude, but because hidden behind the humour was a simple truth. Before worrying about anything, perhaps we should first ask ourselves one quiet question: "Is this really my problem?" If the answer is yes, then give it your time, your effort and your heart. If the answer is no, have the wisdom to let it go. Life has already given each of us enough responsibilities of our own without volunteering for everybody else's.

Reaching home I looked at my phone, Thirty-two unread WhatsApp messages. I deleted half without opening them.

My friend would have approved.

When I was young, this was once the topic of an English essay I was asked to write: *"Enjoy youth; it is the cushion in old age."* At that age, I had no real understanding of what those words meant. To me, it was simply another essay question that needed an answer. I wrote about it with the limited understanding of a young boy and then moved on, never imagining that many decades later I would look back at those same words with a completely different perspective.

Now, after crossing seventy, I find myself returning to that sentence often. Life has taught me the meaning that I could not have understood back then, the quiet value of the experiences, friendships and memories we collect in our younger years.

When we are young, we are always in a hurry. We cannot wait to grow up, move ahead and discover what life has in store for us. We rarely notice the small moments that fill our days because, at that age, they seem ordinary. It is only later that we understand how much those moments meant.

I have forgotten the marks I scored in my school examinations, but I still remember the excitement of Saturday evenings at my boarding school. Saturday meant movie night. From the afternoon itself, there would be a different energy in the hostel. We would guess what film was going to be shown, finish dinner quickly and walk to the hall full of anticipation. When the lights went out and the projector started, we were transported into another world. The film lasted only a couple of hours, but the sentiment of those evenings has stayed with me for more than sixty years. Even today, passing an old cinema hall is enough to take me back to those Saturdays when every film seemed larger than life.

Sundays were much simpler. We played marbles, climbed trees, invented games and played cricket until it became too dark to see the ball. Nobody was trying to create a special memory. We were simply children enjoying the day. Yet those afternoons became some of the happiest chapters of my childhood.

I also remember learning to ride a bicycle. Like most children, I fell many times. Each fall made me feel that perhaps I would never learn. But I kept getting up, brushing the dust off my knees and trying again. Then one day, without even realising when it happened, I was riding on my own. At that moment, I thought I had only learned to ride a bicycle. Looking back now, I realise I had learned something much greater, that falling is part of life, and we must always find the courage to get up again.

When I was growing up, life was much simpler than it is today. We had no mobile phones, no social media and very few photographs. Perhaps because we were not busy recording every moment, we experienced them more fully. Sharing a mango with friends, waiting eagerly for letters from home, listening to stories told by grandparents or walking barefoot on wet grass after the first monsoon shower never seemed extraordinary then. The smell of wet earth after the first rain could make an entire afternoon feel special. Today, these are among the memories I value most.

Somewhere along the way, I realised that we spend our youth making another kind of investment without even knowing it. It costs nothing, grows quietly over the years and often becomes more valuable than money itself. That investment is the collection of memories we create, the friendships, experiences and moments of happiness that remain with us long after the years have passed.

Many of my friends are in their seventies now, and whenever we meet, someone eventually says, "Do you remember..." Before long, an entire afternoon disappears into stories of school days, train journeys, first jobs, unforgettable teachers, childhood mischief and old friendships. It is amazing how easily those memories return, bringing back not just events but the feelings attached to them.

Sometimes an old song is enough to take me back fifty years, bringing back a place, a person or a moment I thought I had forgotten. Memory has a way of keeping a door open to the past.

Of course, life also gives us memories we would rather forget. We all carry disappointments, failures and regrets. But age changes the way we see them. What once seemed like a great difficulty often becomes a lesson that shaped us. Time softens many wounds and leaves behind the wisdom they gave us.

As I have grown older, I have realised that we postpone too much. We tell ourselves there will always be another day to meet a friend, take a journey, learn something new or spend time with family. But life does not always wait for our plans. The people we want to share moments with may not always be there, and the energy we have today may not remain the same tomorrow.

When I look back now, I do not remember the things I owned. I remember the Saturday movie nights at boarding school, the Sunday games of marbles, the bicycle that taught me resilience and the laughter of friends whose voices I can still hear in my mind. Those moments asked for nothing from me, yet they have stayed with me through every stage of life.

We spend years building a future, but we should also spend those years creating a past worth remembering. Because when youth finally becomes a distant chapter, it is these memories that quietly become the cushion that supports us.

The school bell would ring and, within a few minutes, more than two hundred boys would gather in the courtyard for the morning assembly. There were little fellows of six standing beside boys who were almost ready to leave school. Before the assembly began, the place was exactly what you would expect from a school. Some were laughing loudly, some were pushing one another, some were finishing conversations started on the way from the dormitory, and the younger boys were usually looking around to see what the older ones were doing.

Then our principal would walk upto the podium in his neatly pressed grey suit, looking exactly as he did every single morning. I cannot remember him ever shouting for silence. He never blew a whistle. He did not wave his arms or demand attention. In fact, he hardly seemed to do anything at all.

And yet, almost without anyone noticing how it happened, the talking would stop. One conversation ended, then another, and boys quietly moved back into straight lines, and within a minute or two the entire courtyard would become silent. Looking back after all these years, what amazes me is that nobody had given any instruction. Nothing had been announced. Still, everyone understood what was expected.

At that age, I accepted it as just another part of school life. It never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about it. Only much later did I realise that I had witnessed a remarkable lesson in communication. One man had managed to convey everything without saying a single word.

As the years have passed, I have found myself thinking about those assemblies surprisingly often. We spend a great part of our lives listening to words because that is how we are taught to communicate. But life slowly teaches us that many of the things that really matter are seldom spoken aloud. A worried look on a mother’s face, a smile that appears a little too quickly, the slight hesitation before someone answers a perfectly ordinary question, or the silence that follows disappointing news often tells us much more than a long explanation ever could.

When we are children, people teach us how to speak properly. Nobody really teaches us how to notice what another person is trying very hard not to say. That understanding comes only after living for many years, after meeting all kinds of people, and after making enough mistakes to realise that words do not always tell the whole story.

I have known friends who would cheerfully say, “I’m fine,” but would quietly stop calling or slowly withdraw from the circle they once enjoyed. There was no quarrel, no dramatic announcement and no complaint. Yet something had changed within them long before it became visible to everyone else. I have seen husbands and wives having conversations where every sentence sounded perfectly polite, while both of them were hoping the other would understand what remained unspoken. Even in business meetings, people sometimes leave the room believing they have understood the discussion, when in reality the most important message was contained in what nobody chose to mention.

Boarding school taught us these lessons in small ways that seemed quite ordinary at the time. Every now and then someone would receive disappointing news from home. He would not come and tell us about it. There was no need. You noticed it in the slow walk back after collecting the post, in the untouched dessert lying on his plate at dinner, or in the letter that was folded and unfolded several times before lights were switched off in the dormitory. Nobody questioned him. Somehow we simply knew that this was one of those occasions when company mattered more than conversation.

Growing older has only given me more examples. Parents often insist that everything is perfectly all right, although what they really mean is that they do not wish to become a burden to their children. An elderly friend telephones to ask something that he could easily have found out elsewhere, but what he is really looking for is a few minutes of company. It is only with age that one begins to recognise these small signals, and once you notice them, you realise how often people hide their real feelings behind ordinary conversation.

Perhaps that is why I now find myself paying less attention to polished words and more attention to little things that many people overlook - the eyes that do not meet yours for long, the sentence that is left unfinished, the laugh that sounds slightly forced, the invitation that never comes, or the question that someone wanted to ask but somehow could not bring himself to do so.

If growing older has taught me anything of lasting value, it is that listening is not confined to our ears. We also listen by observation. The words people speak certainly have their place, but very often it is the silence between those words that tells us what is really in their hearts.

In the late 1960s, our school introduced a programme called "The Duke of Edinburgh's Award". There were three levels - Bronze, Silver and Gold. As part of the programme, groups of five or six boys had to go hiking and spend one, two and three nights respectively on their own, carrying all their kit and food supplies. We had to cook our own meals without any outside help.

This was something entirely new for us. We had gone camping before, but always under adult supervision. Food was provided, the tents were put up for us, and someone else took care of all the arrangements. This time we were on our own.

Preparation for the trip started about a week in advance. Our group of five met several times to chalk out all the details of what we would require. We discussed how much ration we would need and who would be responsible for procuring it, what clothes to carry, what medicines to take and how the common equipment would be divided among us.

The night before we were to leave, we met one last time to make sure nothing had been overlooked. Finding everything in order, we decided to retire early, as we knew we had a long day ahead of us.

The next morning we were up early. After one final check of our rucksacks, we were ready to go. All the groups assembled on the school ground where we were given the last-minute instructions. We were not to accept lifts, we had to walk in single file, eat only the food we had carried with us, and each of us was given a walking stick. Every hundred steps we were required to make a cut mark on the stick, and at the end of each day we had to write a report of our journey.

At exactly seven o'clock we started towards our destination, roughly twenty kilometres away. We began our expedition with great enthusiasm. As we crossed the school gate, we counted our steps loudly and waved to the staff and students who had gathered to see us off.

After walking a short distance, the road gave way to a narrow path covered with foliage which led down to the riverbed. It was only then that we realised how broad the river actually was. We had crossed it by bridge umpteen times before, but from the road we had never appreciated its true size. Standing there in the middle of it, it seemed like an altogether different river.

We also discovered that walking on sand was very different from walking on a road. Every step demanded more effort, and with the weight of our rucksacks it soon became exhausting. Almost immediately, we regretted carrying a few things that now seemed quite unnecessary.

After walking some distance, we stopped to check our position on the map. We had learnt in our geography classes how to read maps, identify our location and estimate distances. To our surprise, we realised that we had covered very little ground, although to us it had seemed as if we had already walked a long way.

We sat down to catch our breath and go over the journey so far. We did not spend much time resting because there was still a fair distance to cover, and we also needed to stop for lunch.

Fortunately, we had carried sandwiches with us, so we did not have to spend time cooking.

After lunch we started again at a slightly quicker pace. By now we had completely forgotten to count our steps, so we decided to make cut marks all along the stick instead. It was against the rules, but what the heck, nobody was going to know. It was one of those harmless little pranks that seemed perfectly reasonable at that age.

Our journey continued. By now our rucksacks felt much heavier than they had in the morning. They dug into our shoulders, which had begun to ache, and every step seemed more difficult than the last.

When we finally reached our campsite, we dropped our rucksacks to the ground and stretched ourselves out on the grass. We lay there for a good ten minutes before realising that the day was far from over. We still had to put up our tents, prepare dinner and get everything ready for the night.

Reluctantly we got to work. First we pitched the tents and spread out our sleeping bags. Then we searched for bricks and stones to build a makeshift fireplace. One of us went looking for dry wood and twigs while the others got the cooking utensils ready.

Once everything was in place, we lit the fire. Keeping it going, however, was easier said than done because a strong breeze kept blowing the flames about. None of us had the slightest idea how to cook, yet each one of us had plenty of advice to offer. Somehow, after much trial and error, we managed to prepare a potato broth for dinner.

By then we were starving. We could hardly wait any longer. We took out our paper plates and bread, served the broth as equally as we could and sat down to eat.

But our troubles were not over.

The first spoonful was accompanied by a loud crunch. I took another bite and heard the same sound. Instinctively I spat it out. One by one, everyone else did exactly the same. For a few moments we simply stared at one another with puzzled expressions, wondering what on earth had gone wrong.

Only later did we realise that the strong breeze had probably blown dust and fine grit into the broth while it was cooking, making it almost impossible to eat.

We sat there in silence, not knowing what to do. We were completely exhausted and did not have the energy to cook another meal.

For a few minutes, no one said a word. We simply sat there with our paper plates in our hands, looking at one another in disbelief. After nearly eleven hours of walking, all we had looked forward to was a hot meal, and even that had been taken away from us.

In the end, we made do with bread and water. Too tired to think of anything else, we crawled into our sleeping bags, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Like most people, I had heard Thomas Alva Edison's famous words countless times, admired them, and moved on. It is only now, looking back over a long time, that I think I understand them a little better.

What strikes me is not that Edison failed ten thousand times, but that he saw each failure differently from the way most of us do. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we stop treating failure as part of learning and begin treating it as a judgement on ourselves.

The first time I learned this lesson was on a bicycle.

I fell more times than I can remember. My knees carried the evidence for weeks, and there were moments when I wondered whether I would ever manage to stay upright. Yet giving up never crossed my mind because falling seemed perfectly normal. I simply climbed back on, convinced that the next attempt might be different.

Children have a remarkable way of accepting failure. They do not analyse it, personalise it, or carry it around with them. They fall, they get up, and they try again because that is how learning works. No child expects to ride a bicycle on the first attempt.

Adults, unfortunately, seem to forget this. We become cautious, not because we stop making mistakes, but because we become afraid of what those mistakes might say about us. We hesitate to change careers, start businesses, learn new skills, or even admit we were wrong, because failure begins to feel like an indictment rather than an experience.

Life, of course, pays very little attention to our fears. Plans fail. Opportunities disappear. Decisions we were certain about turn out to be poor ones. Looking back, I can see that several of the events I once considered failures altered the direction of my life for the better, although I could not possibly have recognised it at the time.

That is the unfair thing about hindsight. It arrives only after the lesson has been learned.

When I think about that little boy on the bicycle, I realise that learning to ride was probably the least important thing he was doing. Without knowing it, he was learning something he would need for the rest of his life: that falling is not the opposite of moving forward. Very often, it is the price of doing so.

Perhaps growing older is not about becoming wiser. Perhaps it is about remembering what we once knew instinctively, that falling was never the problem. Staying on the ground was.

At that age, I naturally assumed the fault lay with me. I thought I simply wasn't old enough to understand the language of important people. It has taken me many years to wonder whether the responsibility was entirely mine, because age has a way of revealing that sounding intelligent and communicating clearly are not the same thing. We often mistake complexity for depth and confidence for understanding, and once enough people begin nodding along, the temptation is to nod with them rather than ask the embarrassingly simple question: "What does that mean?"

The older I grow, the more I admire people who can make difficult things simple rather than those who make simple things sound difficult, because clarity demands understanding in a way that complexity never does. Looking back, I am no longer certain that the only person in that school hall who failed to understand the chief guest was me.

Some of life's greatest truths are also its greatest contradictions. One that has stayed with me for years is this:

Good decisions come from experience, but experience comes from bad decisions.

It sounds almost circular—until you've lived long enough to realise how true it is.

Like many old sayings, it sounds too simple to deserve much thought. Yet the simplest observations often survive because they contain more truth than pages of advice ever can. The longer I have lived, the more I have realised that this saying is less a clever quote and more an honest description of how life works.

When I was younger, I believed that good decisions came from thinking harder than everyone else. If I gathered enough information, asked enough questions and planned carefully enough, surely I could avoid making costly mistakes. It seemed perfectly logical at the time. Why should anyone learn the hard way if the lessons were already available in books or in the experience of people older than us?

Life, unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—doesn't work like that.

There are some things you can borrow from other people's wisdom, but there are many things that simply refuse to become real until they happen to you. You understand investing differently after watching your own savings disappear. You understand relationships differently after trust has been broken. You understand leadership differently when someone else's future depends on a decision you made.

Until then, much of what we call knowledge remains theoretical. It sits comfortably in the mind without ever reaching the heart.

Looking back, I don't think the best decisions I make today come from becoming smarter. They come from remembering where I have been wrong before. Every poor judgment, every unnecessary risk, every conversation I wish I had handled differently has quietly shaped the way I think now.

At the time those moments felt like failures. Years later, I realise they were not failures at all. They were tuition fees paid to the school of experience.

Perhaps that is why experience is such an effective teacher. It has a way of making lessons unforgettable because it attaches them to consequences. We may forget advice we receive over a cup of tea, but we rarely forget the mistake that kept us awake for nights.

Pain has an unfortunate habit of sharpening memory.

Ironically, the lessons we value the most are often the ones we never wanted to learn.

Age has also changed the way I think about wisdom. I no longer believe it is simply the result of growing older. I have met young people with remarkable judgment and older people who have spent decades repeating the same mistakes. Experience is not measured by the number of years we have lived; it is measured by whether we allow those years to change us.

That, I think, is the part we often overlook.

Mistakes by themselves teach us very little. They only become experience when we are willing to examine them honestly, admit where we were wrong and resist the temptation to blame everyone else. Without that reflection, the same lesson keeps returning, wearing a different face each time.

Many people don't lack experience; they simply repeat it. Reflection is what turns an event into wisdom.

As I have grown older, I find myself feeling less embarrassed by the mistakes I made in my younger years. I still wish I had avoided some of them because a few came with a heavy price. But I also know that if someone had simply explained those lessons to me, I probably wouldn't have understood them. I had to live through them before they became part of me.

Maybe that is the bargain life quietly makes with all of us. It doesn't hand us wisdom first and then ask us to act. It asks us to act with incomplete knowledge, to make choices, to get some of them wrong, and only much later does it reveal what those experiences were trying to teach us all along.

It isn't meant to be clever. It is simply an honest description of how life works. We don't become wiser before we make our choices; we become wiser because of them.

Good decisions come from experience.

And experience, more often than not, comes from bad decisions.

That's life.

One thing age has taught me is that many of our biggest mistakes are made in a hurry.

When I was younger, I believed quick decisions were a sign of confidence. Now I am not so sure.

Over the years, I have seen people buy property without fully understanding what they were buying. I have seen others walk away from secure careers based on judgments that looked sound in the moment but not in hindsight. I have watched people invest money simply because everyone around them was doing the same thing, and I have seen relationships damaged by words spoken in anger.

The decision often took only a moment; living with its consequences often took years.

The trouble is that urgency can be very convincing. Someone tells you that a decision must be made today. An opportunity is presented as something that will disappear if you do not act immediately. A message arrives and creates the feeling that a response cannot wait.

What I have learned is that many situations become clearer when they are given a little time. The pressure to decide quickly often comes from emotion, while good judgment usually arrives more quietly.

The wisest people I know have one habit in common. They do not rush important decisions. They sleep on them. They ask a few questions. They speak to someone they trust. They give their emotions time to settle.

I have rarely regretted waiting a day before making an important decision. I have regretted many decisions that were made in just a few minutes.

Of course, some situations require immediate action. But most of life does not.

Before deciding, I now ask myself a few simple questions: What am I missing? What could go wrong? Am I thinking clearly, or am I reacting emotionally?

These questions do not guarantee the right answer. But they help avoid many wrong ones.

Looking back, I cannot think of many opportunities that were genuinely lost because I took a little extra time to think. On the other hand, I can remember several occasions when acting too quickly created problems that could easily have been avoided.

Perhaps that is one of the quieter lessons that comes with age. Experience does not guarantee better decisions, but it does teach you to be wary of decisions that insist on being made immediately. The truly important choices in life can usually survive a thoughtful pause.

While sorting through them, my daughter noticed a dress and suddenly lit up. “Wow, it’s so pretty!” she said, as if she had discovered a treasure. She picked it up and wouldn’t let go.

A few days later, she wore that same dress to a party. To our surprise, it caught everyone’s attention. People kept looking at her and complimenting her. Many even asked where she had bought it. When she told them it belonged to her grandmother and was from before Independence, they simply couldn’t believe it. To them, it looked like something from a designer shop, still fresh, still stylish.

In that moment, I felt that good things don’t really go out of fashion. Time changes, trends change, but real beauty and craftsmanship stay.

What was once carefully worn by one generation was now being worn with joy by another in the same family. That dress was no longer just a piece of clothing. It had become a memory, a connection, and a little piece of our family’s story.

To begin with, in the first half of the 60s almost everything was in black and white. Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat, Awaara, Shri 420, Bimal Roy’s Bandini, Do Bigha Zameen, so many memorable films were all made without colour. We did not even imagine anything different. Slowly, one odd scene or a song would appear in colour, like Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya in Mughal-E-Azam or the famous song in Chaudhvin Ka Chand. It was only towards the late 60s and early 70s that colour films truly arrived, and when they did, the whole experience seemed to open up in a new way. Dresses looked brighter, the outdoors looked more inviting, and for many of us it felt as if the screen itself had suddenly come alive after years of quietness. But colour or no colour, the real excitement was always on the day a film opened.

Opening day in those days had its own character. In the bigger towns a film generally came on a Friday, but smaller places never had any fixed day. Sometimes the print reached on a Friday like the rest of the country, sometimes it arrived weeks or even months later because only a few prints were in circulation. And if the film that was running was not doing good business, it was simply taken out and another one put in, even in the middle of the week, without any announcement.

But irrespective of big towns or small towns, whenever a new film opened it felt like a festival. People poured in from every direction. You must understand that in those days a film release, especially in a small town, carried the excitement of a cricket match, a wedding, and a political rally all rolled into one. People dressed in their best attire. For a Rajesh Khanna film the women would come all decked up as if they were going to meet him personally. And if it was an Amitabh Bachchan film in the early 70s you had to pray the balcony would stay strong enough to handle the cheering. I still remember, in the film Andaz, Rajesh Khanna appeared only in a guest role and he dies in an accident. When that scene came the women, and even some men, broke down completely. Not just tears but full hysteria. We had to post extra staff in the balcony because no one could predict how people might react in that state of emotion.

And then there was the famous money throwing. Today it may sound unusual, but back then it was almost an art. When a popular song began, coins would start flying. What most people never knew was that in our theatres the staff usually began the ritual. They would keep tin sheets on the floor near the screen. One or two men would stand ready with a handful of coins. The moment the song started they would throw the coins with great enthusiasm. The tin made a loud and promising sound, and the audience immediately followed. Soon the staff realised that the sound mattered more than the coins, and to save money they began using small pebbles. The reaction was exactly the same. By the time the show ended the staff had collected a neat amount. The public believed they were celebrating the film. I knew they were only helping the theatre earn a little extra through a method that had quietly become part of the business.

Crowds behaved as if they were part of the film. If Shammi Kapoor shook his hips the front benchers tried to imitate him. If Vyjayanthimala appeared on screen the kind of noises and comments people made cannot be repeated politely. Dialogues were shouted along with the actors and in some towns even before the actors. I remember a man who knew every single line of Raj Kumar. He would stand up at the correct moment, puff his chest, and deliver the dialogue so loudly that the original track sounded like background music.

Ticket lines were another story. Today tickets can be booked online days and weeks prior, and there are hardly any queues outside the theatre. Even if there is, it is quite peaceful, but back then it was a mad house. People pushed and squeezed their way forward, and jumped lines as if the fate of the day depended on it. Mothers passed small children through the metal grills to hold a place. Entire families depended on one sturdy cousin to fight for tickets while the rest waited at a safe distance. And of course there were the black-ticket boys. They were considered a necessary part of the system. Nobody thought twice before paying them extra. They held the tickets like a prized possession and the rates kept rising as the show time approached. Sometimes the price became ten times higher, depending on the hero. The black-market rate was often the real measure of how well a film might do. The police came and went, pretending to chase the boys, and the boys pretended to run. After a brief performance that everyone understood, the whole system returned to its usual rhythm.

All this had become routine for us, but nothing, however, prepared me for the hysteria the release of Jai Santoshi Ma created. It was a simple religious film and in the first couple of days it behaved like any ordinary non-starrer release. But once word spread it was as if a dam had opened. People came in buses and tractors from all directions. Women were deeply moved and men were not far behind. Even after the last show ended people refused to leave the premises. They were ready to sleep there if needed. Many removed their shoes before entering the hall and this became an opportunity for the staff to earn a little more by safely keeping the footwear.

Someone from the staff then placed a small idol near the entrance, decorated it with flowers and bunting, and dropped a few coins in front of it. That was enough. People began bowing, offering money, and treating the theatre like a temple. Inside the hall there was a faint smell of incense. People sat with folded hands and watched the entire film as if it were a prayer meet. Outside, those waiting for the next show sat around the idol singing hymns. Sometimes the singing grew so loud that it reached inside the hall but nobody objected. Someone even lit a small oil lamp near the ticket window. I instructed the staff not to touch it. For a while it felt as if the running of the theatre had passed from my hands into the hands of something far beyond cinema.

Everything was uncertain in those days. A reel could snap, the power could fail, and the abuses that followed cannot be found in any dictionary. Seats creaked, fans rattled, and sound crackled. Yet the audience behaved as if they were watching pure magic. For them that giant screen brought romance, anger, adventure, and an escape from the dullness of daily life. It was their window to another world.

Sometimes I think the films themselves were only half the attraction. The real show was the crowd, the noise and the chaos, the sheer energy of the whole experience. And I admit I miss it sometimes, the cheering, the whistles, the risk of a stray coin hitting your head, and the sense that something big and slightly unpredictable was happening all around you. Today films are quietly watched. Back then films were lived. And if you ask me which I prefer, I would still choose the chaos, because even when the film disappointed, the experience itself never did, and it was worth every single penny.

Guide, by comparison, felt slow and unfamiliar, and I came out of the theatre feeling cheated. I remember telling my friends that it was a complete waste of time. The grown-ups around me, however, spoke of it with a seriousness that baffled me, and since I had no way of understanding their admiration, I simply went back to the films I enjoyed.

By the seventies, I had grown into the big entertainers of that decade, and Dev Anand had become one of the actors I admired most, partly for his style and partly for the variety of films he brought out. I especially enjoyed Johny Mera Naam.

One afternoon in the mid-seventies, when my friends suggested going for a Dev Anand film, I said yes without hesitation. But when they mentioned that the film was Guide, a memory of childhood boredom came rushing back so strongly that my heart sank. I went along anyway, mostly for the company. This time, the music felt wonderful, Dev Anand looked as charming as ever, and the slower pace no longer seemed a flaw. Yet, I still could not understand why people spoke so highly of the film.

Life moved on, with marriage, children, and responsibilities that slowly turn a young person into an adult without him noticing. By the late nineties, the era of video cassettes had arrived, and one evening around the year 2000, I stopped by a video shop. The shopkeeper, who seemed to know what I liked, pulled out a cassette and said it was a fresh print of Guide. I had not gone there looking for that film, and it was not on my mind in any way, but for some reason, I picked it up and carried it home, almost as though someone wanted (or was ‘guiding’) me to watch it again.

That night, after dinner, once the children were asleep, I poured a small drink and put the cassette on. Within half an hour, I realised that this Guide was nothing like the one I remembered, though of course it was the same film. The story of Raju, a lively and confident tour guide, and Rosie, a gifted dancer trapped in a cold and loveless marriage, unfolded differently in my eyes now. I could see how Raju’s encouragement helped Rosie return to her art, and how their socially daring relationship became a statement ahead of its time.

What struck me most was the moment where Raju, after his release from prison, stands at a crossroad, unsure whether to return to his old life, where no one really wanted him, or to step into the unknown, a life that might offer something he doesn’t yet understand. That hesitation felt familiar to me, because I too have faced moments when the past weighed heavily and the path ahead seemed shapeless, and yet I had to take a step forward simply because I could not do otherwise. It is this very step that eventually brings Raju to a small village, where life begins to shape him in ways he could not anticipate.

That step into the unknown leads to another moment that stayed with me: in the village, Raju, exhausted, lies down in the corridor of a small, run-down temple. A wandering sage notices him, shivering, and gently places a saffron cloth (religious connotation) over him. Raju barely registers it at the time, but it quietly becomes the turning point of his life. The next morning, when the villagers see the saffron cloth wrapped around him, they assume he is a holy man.

At first, he goes along with it just to survive. But their simple, unshakable faith begins to seep into him. When a drought hits and they ask him to fast for rain, he is overwhelmed with fear and guilt. He wants to leave, believing himself unworthy, but they insist he stay, trusting him even after he confesses he is just a man who has served time in jail. He agrees to fast, not because he believes it will make it rain, but because he doesn’t want to turn away from the responsibility they have placed on him. When a journalist asks if he truly believes the rain will come, Raju answers simply, “The villagers have faith in me, and I have faith in their faith…”

Watching these moments, I realised that Raju’s change wasn’t about big gestures or heroics. It happened quietly, almost without him noticing, through the villagers’ trust, the small kindness of the wandering sage, and the choices he made simply because he couldn’t turn away. At first, being treated like a holy man was just something that happened to him. But slowly, it changed him. From a tour guide, he became a spiritual “guide” by carrying the responsibility and hope that others had placed on him. Watching him, I felt that redemption, purpose, and transformation are possible even for someone who has fallen, and that the soul can awaken when one chooses to live with integrity and humility.

Looking back, the ten-year-old boy who dismissed the film had no understanding of love, guilt, ambition, or the slow lessons life teaches. By the time I watched the cassette in 2000, I could see pieces of myself in Raju’s confusion, mistakes, and longing to begin again. Some films you outgrow, but a few grow into you, quietly waiting until you are ready. Guide, once boring to me, became a companion I could return to, and understand a little more with each viewing, and learn from. I’ve rewatched it many times since, including just last night, and it still guides me.

If you enjoyed reading this post:

Support my work

Subscribe now

But Sundays had their own mood.

Breakfast was an hour late, and after that everyone drifted off wherever they liked. Some boys sat around listening to music on a radio or record player. I still remember the first cassette player I ever saw. It belonged to my friend Sangat Bains, who brought it with him from Japan when he joined school, and it felt like a treasure. Though that’s a story for another day.

There were also boys lying under a tree with a book they barely read, while others played pitthu (seven tiles) or ‘gutte’ or ‘gutti’ (a local game, also called five stones) near the staffroom veranda.

Slowly though, without anyone deciding, most of us drifted toward one of our usual spots, the open patch between the main ground and the staffroom by the mango tree, or the triangular space near the school bell. That’s where the marble game always began. We had a few other places too, but my favourite was under the mango tree.

It never started with a crowd. Two or three boys would squat down and draw the first circle in the dust, then another boy wandered in, and then someone else. Before long, half the school was there - boys arguing about rules, shouting advice, offering marbles as stakes as if they were diamonds.

There were always the star players, the ones who could hit a marble from any angle with that perfect snap of the finger. And like any good story, gangs formed within minutes. Two or three boys teamed up to bring down someone with a big collection, or ganged up on the poor fellow who had just come back from a parents’ visit with shiny new marbles. Nothing was said openly, but everyone knew what was happening. Childhood politics begins early.

Sometimes even the teachers joined us. Mr Buttlerwhite, Mr Mohinder Singh, and once in a while Mr Shepard too. They would squat right there in their coats and take a shot like the rest of us. For those few minutes there were no teachers and no students, only players. If your shot was good, you were king, and nobody cared who you were outside that circle.

There was also one girl, whose name I’ve forgotten now, but I remember she was really good at it, a very solid player. Many boys got quite a shock when she knocked their marbles clean out of the ring, and they’d immediately want her on their team.

Of course, our happiness never lasted long. The moment the lunch bell rang, the whole crowd scattered like pigeons. And many times, the seniors would come and simply confiscate our marbles, sometimes just because they wanted the ground for their own game. Either way, a few marbles always remained in the dust, but nobody dared to go back for them.

Still, every Sunday we returned to that same patch of earth and drew the same circle again. Something pulled us there. As Mary Hopkins sang in one of my favourite songs, “those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end” and that’s exactly how those Sundays felt, as if they’d never end…

And now, all these years later, I realise that circle taught us more than any classroom did. How to win, how to lose, how to team up, how to stand alone, how to take a hit, how to give one back. All inside a ring of dust under a mango tree.

If you enjoyed reading this post:

Support my work

Subscribe now

There was this short gentleman with a little paunch, Mr. Kailash, whom we all addressed as the picture man. He would drive in, in a dingy little car, carrying a 16mm projector and a box full of film reels on metal spools. We would gather around him, watching as he set up the projector and carefully threaded the film. When the lights dimmed, everyone would burst into screams and laughter, and then suddenly go silent as the screen lit up. The show always began with a cartoon: Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, or whatever he had brought that week, before the ‘main film’ started.

He brought all kinds of films, but I always waited for the westerns. I think that’s where my fascination for them began. Just the sight of John Wayne, James Stewart, or Henry Fonda walking onto the screen, all holstered up, thrilled me every single time. Those wide-open desert landscapes, a lone rider approaching on horseback, ready to take on the bad guys by himself and come out victorious… it was too good, and honestly, whistle-worthy.

I’ve often thought about why westerns held my fancy. Those films not only entertained us but also showed us the freedom they had which we didn’t, to move around freely as and when they wished. They followed no law except their own. Perhaps that’s why they always looked larger than life to me; while I was bound to the clock, they were masters of their will.

Watching John Wayne or Duke, as he was popularly called, in The Searchers or Stagecoach, or Alan Ladd in Shane, Gary Cooper in High Noon, and even the comic-action in Texas Across the River with Dean Martin… the list goes on and on.

Looking back, I feel those films were more than just childhood thrills. Beyond the shootouts and standoffs, they became a small reminder that there was a world of possibilities outside the school gates. No wonder that even today, I find myself returning to them.

If you enjoyed reading this post:

Support my work

Subscribe now

It feels like stepping into a room I’ve never been in before, not knowing what I’ll find there. And that takes me back to the first time I felt anything like this - when I was five, and my parents left me at a boarding school. I didn’t know the word anxiety then, but I remember the feeling clearly: a small suitcase, a new environment, strange faces, and no sense of how life would unfold next. I cried, I cried a lot, but because there was no choice, I learnt to manage...

Only now, so many decades later, do I realise that might have been the last time I truly paused to understand what I was feeling. After that came work, responsibilities, family, everything that keeps you moving. Feelings found their way to the background. The world changed, and I changed with it, sometimes willingly, sometimes because there was no alternative.

But today, as I sit with this blank page, that five-year-old boy shows up again, the one who somehow kept going. He sits beside me now, reminding me it’s alright to feel uncertain.

Writing, for me, feels like walking into that boarding school again, a place I don’t fully understand yet. The difference is that this time, I’m choosing to walk in. At seventy, I want to give myself one more chance to explore something new, to speak in a voice I never used openly before.

So if I feel anxious or a bit lost, that’s alright. That small boy managed far more with far less, and figured things out. And today, he’s the one lending me courage again.

If you enjoyed reading this post:

Support my work

Subscribe now