I was casually sitting on my bedroom floor, earphones plugged in, listening to The One That Got Away by Katy Perry, when the lyrics “In another life, I would make you stay” appeared.

In another life.

Gen-Z uses this phrase for almost everything. “In another life, I will achieve my dreams.” “In another life, I will tell them how I feel.” “Maybe in another life, I would finally like who I am.” It stopped being about guilt a long time ago. Now it’s mostly just a prettier way of avoiding the things we’re scared of doing.

This is not always a bad thing. There are times when it’s all you have left to say. When you can’t go back, when chapters end without closure, when some chances genuinely disappear. But then there are the other times. The person you’ve been meaning to text for months. The exam you’re too scared to give. The people you’re nervous to approach. The things you keep saying you’ll start when you’re ready, except ready never really arrives. The version of yourself that lives in your imagination and never quite makes it out.

For those things, why wait?

Is it easier? Probably. Saying you’ll do something in another life means you never actually have to do it. You can keep wanting things without risking being bad at them. Which, honestly, is very convenient.

But how is another life even guaranteed? How many of you actually remember anything from your past life? If reincarnation is real, I personally have zero recollection. Maybe I was someone very interesting. A farmer, a princess, a doctor, a warrior. Or maybe I just spent an entire life wishing I would do things differently next time. And when I finally got this one, I’m repeating the exact same process of cancellation, procrastination, and postponing everything to some future version of my life.

Kind of embarrassing.

And even if there is a next life, who said it would look anything like this one? Who said you’d find the same people, want the same things, or even remember what you were waiting for?

Some dreams are meant to be finished here. Not because you’ll achieve everything you try. You won’t. Some doors are permanently closed and pretending otherwise is just delusion. Some people aren’t coming back no matter how many times you rehearse what you’d say. Put those things somewhere else. They’ve earned their place in another life.

But there are also doors you haven’t even tried to open yet. And those don’t belong anywhere else.

So yes, save some things for another life. But stop saving everything for a life you haven’t been promised.

Because what if this is the only one you get?

I can usually tell when something happened before anyone tells me what happened. I notice the pause when I walk into a room. I notice when two people who were laughing five minutes ago suddenly aren’t looking at each other. I notice when my friend looks at me from across the room and I know, somehow, exactly what that look means. I don’t know when I got this good at it. I just am.

Growing up comes with a strange kind of education. No one really sits you down and explains the small things you’re going to need to know. You just start picking them up along the way. You learn that “do whatever you want” is rarely as simple as it sounds. You learn when someone actually wants an answer and when they just want you to understand why they’re upset. You learn that sometimes a person can tell you something completely ordinary and you can still hear everything they didn’t say.

You get especially good at reading people you’re close to. My friends don’t always have to say anything. Sometimes one look across a room is enough. There’s the look that means did you hear that?, the one that means please get me out of here, and the one that means we are absolutely talking about this later. At some point, you stop thinking about it. You just understand.

You also start recognising silence. Not the peaceful kind where nobody has anything to say, the kind that arrives after something has gone wrong. Two people can sit in the same room and say absolutely nothing, and somehow you can feel the entire argument sitting between them. Nobody has to explain what happened. You can tell by the way they avoid each other, by how quickly someone changes the subject, by how normal everyone is trying to act.

And then you learn that even “sorry” has different meanings. There is the sorry that makes you feel like the person actually understood what they did. There is the sorry that comes because somebody is tired of arguing. There is the sorry that technically counts as an apology but somehow makes you want to say, you know what, never mind. You start noticing the difference.

That might just be one of the strangest parts of growing up. You become fluent in things that don’t really have names. You understand tension. You understand awkwardness. You understand when someone wants company but doesn’t want to ask for it. You understand when a conversation isn’t meant for you, even when nobody tells you to leave. You understand that people can miss someone without talking about them, and that a friendship can change long before anyone admits that it has.

And somewhere along the way, you realise you have spent years learning how to read everyone else. You can catch the tiny changes in someone’s voice, the expression they make when they’re pretending not to care, the silence that means more than whatever they could have said. You can understand people without them having to explain themselves.

And that’s what being grown up is partly about. Not knowing everything. Just becoming better at noticing.

Because some of the most important things you’ll ever learn don’t come with definitions, instructions, or a teacher telling you that you’ve got it right. You pick them up silently, from people, from friendships, from awkward moments, from things that changed you before you even realised they were changing you.

And eventually, without ever meaning to, you become fluent in things nobody ever taught you.

People talk about high school like it’s one thing.

It’s exams. Friends. Teachers. CAs. Lunch breaks, foyers. Somehow, it’s all of those things at the same time.

Some days, high school is genuinely fun. Some days, you’re counting down the minutes until the last bell. And some days, you’re laughing so much with your friends that you completely forget you’re supposed to be paying attention in class.

My friends and I are definitely not the quiet group. Teachers know we’re together before they even see all of us. Someone starts laughing, someone else joins in, and in less than thirty seconds we’re all looking at each other trying not to laugh harder.

Usually, that makes it worse. Someone will say, “bruh.” And that’s it. The entire conversation is over.

Then there are the serious classes where you’re genuinely trying to listen, and one person makes one face across the room and suddenly nobody can look at each other anymore. Those are the moments I know I’ll remember.

I don’t think I’ll remember every Business case study. I’ll probably forget half the Economics graphs. English Paper 1 will eventually stop feeling like a life challenge. Math AI will hopefully stop making me question my intelligence every time I see one tricky question, and those “smart kids” in AA HL. Hindi vocabulary will make its way out of my brain the second I put the pen down after some test, and ESS will remain ESS.

But I’ll remember what happened around all of it.

I’ll remember sitting with my friends before class and talking about absolutely nothing. I’ll remember the looks across the classroom when something funny happened and we couldn’t say anything. I’ll remember the random conversations between periods that became more interesting than whatever we were supposed to be doing.

I’ll remember the classroom before the teacher walked in. Someone’s finishing homework. Someone’s asking for a pen. Someone’s checking the time. Someone’s trying to remember what the CA is on. And then someone hears footsteps outside and suddenly everyone is sitting properly.

For approximately three seconds. The corridor has its own life too.

You leave class to go somewhere and somehow meet six people you weren’t expecting to see. Someone yells out your name from the other end of the foyer. You stop for a conversation. Then you realise you’re late and start walking faster while still talking.

The girls’ washroom is chaotic in a way that I can’t explain. Someone is fixing their hair. Someone is telling a story. Someone is complaining about a teacher. Someone is revising something five minutes before a CA even though they know it’s probably too late. And somehow, everyone leaves feeling like they accomplished something.

Then there’s the canteen. You can have absolutely no plans to buy anything and still somehow end up standing in the queue because your friend said, “Come, I’m getting something.” That’s how half the decisions in high school take place. unplanned You just go.

Maybe that’s what makes high school feel like high school.

It’s not the big events all the time. It’s the random walk to class. The person who always has a pen. The friend who makes you laugh at the worst possible moment. The inside jokes that would make absolutely no sense to anyone else. The five-minute conversations that somehow become twenty.

One day, all of this is going to stop being normal. We won’t have the same classrooms, the same timetable, or the same excuse to see the same people every day. And I don’t think we’ll miss every test or every deadline. Insteadwhat we will miss are the ordinary parts.

The things we never thought we’d have to remember.

High school isn’t one thing.

It’s all the little things happening at the same time, while we’re too busy living them to realise that one day, we’ll look back and miss exactly this.

The first thing people notice is usually the colour. Red fabric. Gold jewellery. Fresh flowers that have already started losing their smell by the afternoon.Someone is walking around with a tray full of sweets. Someone else keeps asking where the photographer disappeared. Children are running between rows of chairs until an adult pulls them back before they ruin someone’s outfit.

Everything seems planned.

An older woman reaches forward and fixes the bride’s dupatta for what feels like the fifth time. Another adjusts a bangle that keeps slipping down her wrist. People around her are talking, laughing and giving instructions she quietly follows without saying much herself.

If you were standing at the back of the room, you’d probably think you knew this story already.

A family celebrating.

Two people starting a new life.

A wedding.

Then imagine hearing what happened before that day. She travelled over a thousand kilometres to get there. The people around her speak a language she barely understands. Her parents aren’t sitting in the front row. And somewhere before the ceremony began, money changed hands. This isn’t a rare headline that disappears after a week. This is bride trafficking.

I always used to think human trafficking looked obvious. Someone locked inside a room. Someone begging to escape. Someone running through dark streets while everyone else watched. I never imagined it could happen under a decorated canopy with guests taking family photos.

Across India, women from poorer states like Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal are promised jobs, marriage or a better future. Some agree to meet someone they believe they might marry. Some leave because their families need money. Some are lied to from the beginning.

Instead of arriving at the life they were promised, they arrive in places where they’re expected to become wives they never chose to be. The brokers disappear. The woman stays. The question that stayed with me wasn’t how this happens. It was why. The answer starts years before these women are even born.

For decades, parts of India treated daughters as less valuable than sons. Sex-selective abortions, neglect and discrimination slowly changed the population itself. Fewer girls were born. Fewer women grew up there. A shortage was created. Instead of asking why daughters disappeared, another solution appeared. Buy a bride from somewhere else.

Some of these women are called “molki” or “paro.” In parts of Haryana and Punjab, molki literally means a purchased bride, while paro is used for women brought from another state to marry into a family. Imagine losing your name before you’ve even unpacked your bag. The word becomes your identity. The purchase becomes your introduction.

People often imagine trafficking as something that happens across international borders. Bride trafficking proves it doesn’t have to. Sometimes the distance is measured between two Indian states. A train journey becomes the line between one life and another.

The hardest part is that leaving isn’t simple.

Many women don’t know the local language. They don’t have money. Their phones are taken away. Their documents disappear. Their families are hundreds of kilometres away, and even if they somehow find a police station, explaining where they came from becomes another obstacle.

Some are forced into pregnancy almost immediately. Some face violence.Some are sold again. And some spend years living inside marriages everyone around them accepts as normal. The photographs never explain any of that. They capture the jewellery. They capture the rituals. They capture everyone smiling at the camera.

They never capture the conversation that never happened.

“Do you want this?”

That question disappears before the wedding even begins.

What makes bride trafficking difficult to recognise is that it borrows the appearance of something people celebrate. Weddings are built around family, tradition and commitment. Bride trafficking wears the same clothes while removing the one thing that gives marriage meaning.

Choice.

We grow up hearing that weddings unite families. That they mark new beginnings. That they’re one of life’s happiest days. For thousands of women, the wedding isn’t the beginning of a choice.

It’s the end of one.

The next time you see wedding photos online, they’ll probably look exactly like every other wedding you’ve ever seen. The flowers will match. The jewellery will shine. The comments will fill with hearts and congratulations. And that’s what makes this issue so difficult to look at.

Sometimes the difference between a celebration and exploitation isn’t visible in the picture at all.

A wedding should begin with consent. Bride trafficking begins where consent ends.

The scariest thing about freedom is that it disappears from your mind long before it disappears from your country.

I didn’t wake up thinking about independence today. I woke up because my alarm was annoying. I checked my phone before getting out of bed. There were already tricolour stories on Instagram. School reminders. “Happy Independence Day.” Somewhere outside, someone had started playing patriotic songs before breakfast.

It felt familiar. Then I realised something. For me, this morning was ordinary. For someone waking up on 15 August 1947, ordinary didn’t exist anymore. The night before, India was still under British rule. The morning after, it wasn’t. That thought lingered in my head longer than I expected.

We usually learn independence through dates, names, and chapters we underline before exams. 1857. Non-Cooperation Movement. Salt March. Quit India. 15 August 1947. We memorise them, write them down, and move on. But nobody really talks about the morning after. Nobody talks about a sixteen-year-old opening their front door and stepping into a country that had finally become its own.

For almost two hundred years, India wasn’t deciding its own future. The British did.

Our resources were taken. Our industries were weakened. People who spoke against colonial rule were jailed. Newspapers faced censorship. Peaceful protests were met with violence. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre wasn’t just another paragraph in a textbook. It happened because hundreds of Indians gathered and never got to go home.

It’s weird how history becomes quieter once it’s printed on a page. The people living through it probably didn’t know which moments would end up in textbooks. They were just trying to get through another day.

“Do you think we’ll ever be free?”

Maybe someone actually asked that. Maybe someone whispered it so nobody else would hear. Maybe someone stopped asking because doing that had become dangerous.

Then midnight arrived. The borders didn’t suddenly disappear. The roads didn’t rebuild themselves before sunrise. Life didn’t become perfect because the clock struck twelve. But something impossible had finally become real.

India belonged to Indians.

I keep wondering what that first sunrise felt like. Did people walk outside differently? Did they look at the flag longer? Did they realise they were standing inside history before history had a chance to name itself?

We’ll never know. What we do know is what happened next. Eighty years passed. Now it’s 2026, and India celebrates its 80th Independence Day. That’s a number that sounds huge until you think about it differently. There are grandparents alive today who grew up hearing stories about British rule from people who actually lived through it. That means independence isn’t ancient history. It still has a heartbeat. The strange part is how quickly we stop noticing it.

I can complain about school online. I can read opinions that disagree with each other. I can dream about studying somewhere else and still come back home.One day I’ll also stand in a voting line instead of reading about democracy in a textbook.

None of those thoughts begin with, “Am I allowed to?” That’s privilege created by independence. The people before 1947 spent years asking whether freedom would ever arrive. We spend five seconds deciding which Independence Day story to post. I’ll admit it, I’ve done that too.

I’ve stood in assemblies waiting for them to finish. I’ve adjusted my badge more than I’ve listened to the speech. Then our national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana”starts, and for fifty-two seconds, everyone goes quiet. We all know the words. We all stand still. It’s one of the few moments where an entire crowd breathes to the same rhythm and surprisingly, that’s become routine too. I’ve taken pictures with the flag before checking whether I actually remembered why it was there.That’s probably what time does. It turns survival into routine. It turns sacrifice into a holiday. It turns history into something that feels finished. But it isn’t finished. Every generation inherits the country differently.

The generation before 1947 fought to make India free. The generations after inherited that freedom. Ours has to decide what we’re doing with it. Because freedom doesn’t disappear all at once. It disappears gradually. When we stop remembering who fought for it. When we stop questioning what we’re protecting. When we start treating independence like a calendar notification instead of the reason we get to live the lives we call normal.

Tomorrow, the patriotic songs will stop. The flags hanging from balconies will come down. The Instagram stories will expire. The holiday will end.

History didn’t end on 15 August 1947. It handed us the country and left the rest of the story blank.

I don’t think most of us notice when it starts. It feels normal.

You open TikTok while waiting for someone to reply. One funny video. Then another. Then a skincare reel. Then someone talking about becoming “that girl.” Then a stranger telling you what confidence looks like. Somewhere in between, you stop questioning it.

The next day, your feed looks even more familiar. Almost too familiar. A few days later, everyone suddenly has the same opinions.

The same clothes.

The same words.

The same goals.

And you start thinking,

“Wait... does everyone actually think like this?” No. Your phone just made it feel that way.

A few months ago, I searched for one thing. One. After that, it followed me everywhere. Every app somehow knew exactly what to show me next. I wasn’t looking for it anymore, but it kept finding me. That’s when I realised something that genuinely scared me.

The algorithm doesn’t wait for you to become someone. It starts deciding who you are while you’re still figuring it out. It watches everything. The videos you finish. The ones you skip. The ones you replay.

Even the ones you pause on for two extra seconds. Two seconds. That’s all it needs to make another guess about you. And the weird part? Most of its guesses become your next reality. If it decides you’re interested in fitness, your feed fills with perfect bodies. If it decides you’re into luxury, suddenly everyone owns expensive perfumes. If it decides you care about one opinion, it keeps showing you people who agree with it.

Again. And again. And again.

After a while, it doesn’t feel like a recommendation anymore. It feels true.

There’s actually a reason for this. Our brains already like information that agrees with what we think. Psychologists call it confirmation bias. The algorithm figured that out before most of us even knew the name for it.

It doesn’t argue with you. It nods. It keeps saying, “See? Everyone else thinks this too.” Except they don’t. You’re just meeting the same kind of people over and over.

I think about this a lot when I look at teenagers my age. We’re still deciding who we are. We’re changing every few months. And somehow an app already has a version of us saved. What scares me isn’t that my phone knows what I’ll watch next. It’s that it might know before I do.

So the next time your feed feels a little too accurate, ask yourself one question.

“If I never saw the other side... was this opinion ever really mine?”

I don’t think I realised what it meant to grow up as a girl in India all at once. It happened slowly. One news headline at a time. One warning at a time. One, “Don’t stay out too late,” at a time.

Nobody ever sits you down and tells you, “Congratulations! You’re now old enough to be scared.” It just... happens. One day you’re a little girl whose biggest problem is finishing her homework, and the next you’re texting your friends, “Reach home and text me.” Every girl knows exactly what that sentence means. Every girl has probably sent it. Every girl has probably received it.

And the fact that we’ve normalised it, should bother all of us.

I can’t remember the last time I opened social media without seeing another headline about a girl being raped, murdered or attacked with acid. I wish I was exaggerating. I’m not. What’s even scarier is how quickly we’ve learnt to move on. Someone shares the news on their story. People repost it. Everyone says, “This is so heartbreaking.” The next morning we’re back to arguing over celebrity gossip and trending reels.

Another day.

Another case.

Another girl.

Another hashtag.

When did we become so used to hearing words like rape, acid attack and murder, that they barely shock us anymore? Why have they become so common that hearing about another case feels expected instead of unbelievable? This shouldn’t be normal. NOTHING about it is normal.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we’ve accepted it as part of living here. I’m sixteen. I shouldn’t have to think about whether the road I’m walking on is safe. I shouldn’t have to share my live location before getting into a cab. I shouldn’t have to clutch my keys a little tighter while walking home. I shouldn’t have to wonder whether that man staring is just looking or something worse.

Yet almost every girl I know has done at least one of those things. Some have done all of them. People often say, “Just be careful.” We are. We’ve been careful for years. We avoid empty roads. We change our routes. We stop wearing our earphones while walking on the street at night. We pretend to be on calls. We text people when we reach home. We carry pepper spray. We share our location.

How much more careful are we expected to be?

Sometimes it feels like girls are handed a rulebook the moment they grow up. Don’t wear this. Don’t go there. Don’t stay out late. Don’t trust strangers. Don’t travel alone.

Don’t...

Don’t...

Don’t.

ITS EXHAUSTING!

What’s even more exhausting is that after every horrifying case, the conversation somehow circles back to us. What was she wearing? Why was she out so late? Why was she alone?

And sometimes, what hurts even more is seeing people we’re supposed to trust respond with the same lack of empathy. There have been moments when politicians and public figures have laughed while discussing rape cases, made insensitive remarks, or even defended people accused or convicted of these crimes. If those in positions of power can’t treat violence against women with the seriousness it deserves, what message does that send to everyone else? That our fear is a joke? That our pain is negotiable?

I’ve never understood why those questions are easier to ask than, “Why did someone think they had the right to hurt her?” Somewhere along the way, we started teaching girls how to survive instead of asking why survival has become a lesson in the first place.

This isn’t me saying every man is dangerous. This is me saying every girl knows fear. There’s a difference.

Growing up as a female in India has taught me many things. It has taught me independence. It has taught me resilience. But it has also taught me to calculate risks before making plans. That’s the part I hate. Fear has become so ordinary that it slips into everyday conversations without anyone noticing.

“Text me when you get home.”

“Send me your live location.”

“Call me if anything feels weird.”

We say these things because we care. We also say them because somewhere deep down, we know why we’re saying them. And honestly, that scares me more than the headlines themselves. Because headlines are supposed to shock us. Routine isn’t.

So before another case becomes another hashtag, before another family loses another daughter, before another comment section fills with opinions instead of accountability, maybe we should stop asking girls how to be safer and start asking why we’ve accepted living this way in the first place.

And if that’s become normal... What does that say about the country we’re asking girls to grow up in?

I love my country. But loving something doesn’t mean pretending it’s perfect. It means wanting it to be better.

I don’t know when everything started needing a label. Talking stage, situationship, almost relationship... there’s a name for everything now. The only problem is that whatever this was, didn’t really fit into any of them.

We were never together. There was never a conversation where we decided we liked each other, never a “what are we?“ talk, and definitely no anniversary. But if you asked anyone around us, they would’ve assumed we were dating anyway.

We’d known each other for years. Long enough that seeing him every day became normal. I liked him first. He liked me a bit later. Neither of us really had to say anything because our friends had already figured it out. Instead of minding their own business, they became our wingmen. Every conversation found its way back to us, and I don’t think there was a single person who didn’t ship us at least once.

For almost two years, that was just how things were. We’d talk every day, fight over things that probably didn’t deserve an argument, stop talking for a few days, and then start talking again like nothing had happened. It became such a pattern that people had stopped asking if we’d fought and started asking “You two fought again?” The answer was usually yes.

The funniest part is that there was never a proper apology. No long conversation. No closure. We’d just... start talking again. One of us would laugh, ask the other for notes, or make some stupid comment, and suddenly the fight was over. Looking back, I don’t even know how that worked, but it always did.

We somehow managed to have breakups without ever being in a relationship.

There were also all the little things that made it so obvious. Staring at him for a bit too long without even realising it. Remembering random things he’d mentioned weeks ago. My face turning red every single time he talked to me. I honestly thought I was doing a quite a decent job at hiding it.

I wasn’t.

Everyone knew.

There are probably notebooks somewhere with his initial all over the last page because, at some point, I clearly had too much free time. We even had codenames. His was Conditioner because conditioner nourishes your hair and, according to me, he nourished my life. It made perfect sense 6 months ago. I don’t think I could explain it now even if I tried.

He also had green eyes, which really didn’t help.

The strange thing about liking someone for that long is that they subconsciously become part of your daily routine. You expect to see them the next day because you’ve always seen them the next day. You never really think about what happens when that routine ends.

It wasn’t until farewell that I realised I wasn’t going to see him every day anymore. For the first time in years, there wasn’t going to be another Monday morning, another random conversation, another argument, or another reason to look around hoping he’d be there. That’s when it actually hit me.

School ended, and like every other school story, ours ended too. I still don’t know what we were. Friends? More than friends? A situationship? An almost relationship? I honestly have no idea. All I know is that we somehow skipped the relationship and went straight to the breakup.

I still think that’s unfair. Because even now if someone asked me whether I’d go through all of it again, knowing exactly how it ends...

I’d still say yes.

People always tell you to choose your friends wisely. As if friendship comes with a manual.

Step one: Find good people.

Step two: Become best friends.

Step three: Live happily ever after.

If only it worked like that.

Nobody tells you that the people who’ll eventually know everything about you usually start off as... well, just people. They’re the ones sitting somewhere across the classroom, asking to borrow a pen they’ll conveniently forget to return, laughing a little too hard at something completely unfunny, or becoming your partner because the teacher randomly paired you together.

There isn’t one moment where you suddenly think, “Yep. These are my people.”It happens so slowly that you don’t even realise it’s happening. One day you’re talking about homework, and a few months later they know your entire family tree, every situationship you’ve ever sworn was “the last one,” and enough embarrassing details to haunt you for the rest of your life. Honestly, trusting your friends with that much information is either the biggest sign of love or the worst decision you’ll ever make.

Friendship doesn’t arrive with an invitation. It quietly settles into your life until you can’t remember what life looked like without it.

If someone asked me what my favourite memory with my friends is, I genuinely wouldn’t know what to say. It’s not one birthday. Not one trip. Not one photograph. It’s every random Tuesday that wasn’t supposed to become a memory in the first place.

It’s the conversations that somehow started with, “Did you do the homework?”and ended with us questioning every life decision we’d ever made. It’s laughing so hard that the teacher had to separate us, only for us to continue the conversation from opposite corners of the classroom. It’s sending each other the same reel at exactly the same time and acting surprised, even though at this point we all share one brain cell anyway.

Looking back, I don’t think the best memories are the ones you plan. They’re the ones that happen while you’re busy living.

Of course, if our friendship had been perfect, this blog would’ve been a lot shorter.

There was a time when one argument managed to create a distance that felt much bigger than it actually was. We went from speaking every day to pretending we hadn’t even noticed each other. Looking back now, it almost feels silly. Not because our feelings weren’t real, but because we were all so busy holding onto our own side of the story that none of us stopped to look at the whole picture.

The strange thing is, that chapter didn’t define our friendship. It refined it. One honest conversation later, we realised something that probably mattered more than the argument itself. Real friendships aren’t tested by how little they go wrong. They’re tested by whether the people involved are willing to find their way back to each other.

Since then, life hasn’t suddenly become perfect. We still interrupt each other. We still make fun of each other every chance we get. We still somehow manage to laugh at the worst possible moments, even when we’re trying our hardest not to. And somehow, despite all of that, they’ve become my safe place.

They’re the people I can sit with in complete silence without feeling the need to fill it. The people who know something’s wrong before I’ve figured out how to put it into words myself. The people who remind me who I am on the days I’ve forgotten.

I think the biggest gift they’ve given me isn’t the memories. It’s the person I’ve become because of them.

If you’re lucky enough to have people who make you better without trying to change who you are, don’t take them for granted. Friendships aren’t special because they last forever. They’re special because, every single day, people choose to stay.

So if you have people who make you better, don’t let your ego make you lose them.

It’s funny how we don’t always realise the value of something until someone else points it out.

Yoga was once seen as something our grandparents woke up early to do. Now it’s **”wellness.” **Turmeric milk became “golden latte.” Ayurveda became “luxury skincare.” Meditation became “mindfulness.” Handloom became “high fashion.”

The same things that many of us once dismissed as old-fashioned suddenly became desirable the moment they were packaged differently. And somehow, we started believing they were better.

There’s nothing wrong with appreciating another culture. In fact, that’s how the world grows. We learn from one another. We borrow ideas. We celebrate traditions that aren’t our own. That’s what cultural exchange is supposed to look like.

The problem arises when appreciation turns into imitation.

Somewhere along the way, many of us started treating our own culture as something to grow out of. Wearing traditional clothes became “too much”unless it was a festival. Speaking an Indian language in public suddenly felt embarrassing to some people, while speaking English became a personality trait. Family traditions became “backward,” but the moment the same values were explained through a Western podcast or a self-help book, they suddenly sounded revolutionary.

Why do we need someone else’s approval before we start appreciating what has always been ours?

The irony is almost impossible to be ignored. While people across the world are embracing Indian textiles, learning classical dance, practising yoga, cooking Indian food, celebrating Holi, studying Ayurveda and travelling thousands of miles to experience our traditions, many of us are doing the exact opposite.

We’re busy convincing ourselves that anything foreign is automatically better. Not because it actually is. But simply because it’s foreign. That’s the part that deserves to be questioned.

Modernity was never supposed to mean replacing your identity. You can wear jeans and still love a saree. You can listen to Western music and still appreciate Indian classical music. You can celebrate Christmas with your friends and still light diyas on Diwali. You can speak fluent English and still take pride in your mother tongue.

None of these things cancel each other out.

Culture was never meant to be a competition. It’s not about choosing India over the West or the West over India. It’s about recognising that embracing another culture shouldn’t require abandoning your own.

Because culture isn’t just clothing. It isn’t just food. It isn’t just festivals. It’s the stories your grandparents tell. It’s the recipes that have stayed the same through generations. It’s the languages that carry emotions that no translation could ever completely captures. It’s the little traditions you don’t even notice until they’re gone.

**Culture isn’t something you wear when it’s trending. It’s something you carry, even when no one is watching. **Maybe that’s what we’ve forgotten. We’re so busy chasing what’s new that we’ve stopped looking at what has always been beautiful. Our culture has not become any less valuable. The only thing we ignore is that somewhere along the way, we started believing it needed validation. It doesn’t.

Culture isn’t a trend. It never was. And it never should be.

Four Nights Five days

If schools really wanted students to learn about teamwork, communication and leadership, they wouldn’t need to organise workshops. All they had to do is send everyone on an overnight trip. Because something about leaving school for four nights and five days completely changes people. The quiet kid suddenly won’t stop talking. The teacher who spends the whole year telling everyone to settle down somehow ends up laughing louder than half the class. And your friends? They become the biggest problem you’ll have for the next five days.

Every overnight trip starts the same way. An airport full of teenagers wearing the exact same P.E. T-shirt and jeans, dragging suitcases that somehow looked perfectly normal while packing but suddenly weighed about twenty kilos. Teachers are busy counting heads every five minutes, parents are giving the same “Don’t lose your Aadhaar card” speech for the hundredth time, and everyone’s pretending they’re listening. Nobody is. Because the only conversation happening is,

“What’s your seat number?”
“Can you switch with me?”
“No, I promised her I’d sit with her.”
“Please, just ask him.”

Poor strangers who just wanted a peaceful flight somehow end up involved in negotiations they never asked to be a part of. By the time the plane takes off, almost nobody is sitting where they were originally supposed to.

Unless your friends get to know where your crush is sitting. Then it’s done for you. Suddenly everyone wants to be matchmakers.

“Wait, he’s in 18B.”
“YOU’RE IN 21C?”
“I’ll swap. She’ll swap. Someone tell him to move.”

Before you know it, five people have changed seats, one innocent classmate has been shifted to the back of the plane, and you’re sitting next to the one person you’ve spent the last six months pretending you don’t care about. Your friends? They’re sitting three rows behind you trying to make eye contact every ten minutes just to see what’s happening.

The funniest part is that absolutely nothing has to happen. You could spend the whole flight talking about airplane food. Or not talking at all. It doesn’t matter. The second you land, everyone has already decided you’re “officially” dating.

You stand next to each other during breakfast?
“Interesting...”
You end up in the same activity group?
“Definitely planned.”
You borrow their power bank? That’s enough information your friends need. Every overnight trip has at least one couple. Even if they don’t end up liking each other, they develop feelings because fifteen other people collectively decided they should.

Then comes the bus ride from the airport. That’s where the trip actually begins. Someone connects their phone to the speaker before the bus has even left the parking lot. One person complains about the playlist.
“Bro, let me connect.”

Within five minutes the entire bus is screaming lyrics that half the people don’t even know properly. People are standing in the aisle. Someone’s recording everything for a reel they’ll post three weeks later. Someone’s already asleep against the window. Someone keeps opening the snack packet as loudly as humanly possible. And somehow, that sixty minute bus ride becomes one of the best things everyone remembers years later.

Then you finally reach the hotel. Room allocations. I have never seen students care so deeply about random numbers.

“Room 214...”
Silence.
“With...”
Complete suspense.
And then...
“YESSSS!”

People celebrate room numbers like they’ve just been handed their dream university acceptance letters. Suitcases are dumped on the floor. Nobody unpacks. Because unpacking means staying in your own room. And nobody stays in their own room. Within half an hour, every room belongs to everyone. Somebody’s borrowing a charger. Someone else is borrowing a hoodie. There’s a hair straightener travelling between six different rooms.

One room somehow becomes the main one where fifteen people are sitting on four beds trying to decide what to wear for dinner, as if they’re about to attend the Met Gala instead of eating a hotel buffet. The phones that everyone swears they don’t have are dumped in the best hiding spots. Inside hoodies. Inside pillow covers. Inside toiletry bags. Between folded clothes.

The strange thing is, if someone asked me where we went on every overnight trip, I’d probably have to think for a second. Was it Pondicherry? Jodhpur? Coorg? I don’t remember every itinerary or every monument we visited. But I remember the seat swaps. I remember hiding under beds during room checks. I remember pretending to be asleep while trying not to laugh. I remember the bus rides that felt way too short, the jokes that lasted the entire trip, and the friends who somehow managed to make five days feel like five weeks.

Four nights. Five days. A suitcase full of dirty clothes, a camera roll you’ll never bring yourself to delete, and memories that somehow get funnier every time you tell them.

I'll be honest. I don't fully understand what's happening in Delhi. I'm fifteen. Politics confuses me. I don't know enough to take sides or point fingers or say who's wrong and who's right.

I genuinely don't.

But I know what it feels like to study for something. I know what it's like to sit with notes at midnight and tell yourself it'll be worth it. I know what it's like to watch your parents do things quietly so you don't have to worry. I know what it's like to care about an exam so much that it becomes the only thing on your mind for months.

So when I heard that students had done all of that, given up everything students give up, and then found out the paper had already been leaked before they even sat down, I didn't know what to feel at first.

And then I did.

It felt like being lied to. Not in a dramatic way. Just in that quiet way where you realise something you believed in wasn't quite what you thought it was.

I watched what happened next on my phone. Students my age standing in Delhi in July heat, holding signs, asking for someone to say something. Do something. Anything. They weren't being violent. They weren't asking for the impossible. They were just asking to be heard.

They got tear gas.

I've been thinking about that ever since. Not because I want to make it political (Hell, that’s beyond what my brain can process at this age). But because I genuinely don't understand it.

They were students. Standing outside. Holding signs. That's it. I don't know what it takes to do what they did. I've never stood on a street with a placard. But I think it comes out of exhaustion. You have to reach a point where waiting quietly stops feeling like an option. Where you've been patient for so long that standing outside in the July heat somehow feels easier than sitting at home and watching nothing change.

I'll sit for exams in a few years. Important ones. The kind my parents will quietly plan their lives around without saying anything about it. I want to believe those exams will be fair. I want to believe that what I know will matter more than what someone found out the night before.

And I want to believe that if students ever have to stand outside asking for something to be fixed, someone will actually stop and listen.

We just wanted someone to listen. That shouldn't be this hard.

How much can a T-shirt really cost?

₹499? ₹999? Maybe ₹2,499 if there’s a tiny logo stitched onto it. That’s probably what came to your mind. Mine too. Because that’s how we’ve been taught to measure the cost of clothes. We look at the price tag, compare it with three other websites, wait for a sale, apply a discount code we found five minutes ago, and suddenly we feel like we’ve saved money.

But what if the price tag isn’t the real cost?

Fast fashion didn’t become successful because people suddenly needed more clothes. It became successful because brands discovered that if trends changed fast enough, people would always feel like they needed something new.

And honestly? It worked.

One day everyone owns Adidas Sambas. The next day they’re “overdone.” Suddenly everyone’s wearing ballet flats. A week later it’s leopard print. Then someone on TikTok calls polka dots “the comeback of the year,” and before you know it, everyone wants a wardrobe refresh.

The clothes didn’t suddenly become worse. The trend just changed.

We’ve started treating clothes like they’re temporary. Exciting for a few weeks, then forgotten when the next trend arrives. But clothes don’t simply disappear when we stop wearing them. They end up somewhere.

Every “cute top” has a story long before it reaches our wardrobe. Someone stitched it. Someone packed it. Someone spent hours making it. To keep up with endless trends, factories produce clothes at incredible speed. That means more water is used, more chemicals are released into rivers, more carbon is emitted, and more waste is created. Many of those clothes are thrown away after being worn only a handful of times. But none of that appears on the shopping website. All we see is “New Arrivals.”

We always tell ourselves the same thing.

“It’s just one top.”

And that’s true. It is just one top. Until millions of people are saying the exact same sentence.

Fast fashion isn’t just selling clothes anymore. It’s selling urgency. Limited stock. Flash sale. Only three left. Don’t miss out. The goal isn’t simply to make you like the clothes. It’s to make you feel like you’ll regret not buying them.

And the worst part?

It works.

We end up buying things we didn’t even know existed ten minutes earlier because somehow we’ve been convinced that a linen co-ord set is more important than it actually is.

That’s... impressive marketing. Slightly concerning. But impressive.

We’ve become so busy chasing the next trend that we rarely stop to ask what happened to the last one. We spend money trying to stand out, only to end up wearing the exact same outfit as everyone else because we all watched the same fifteen-second reel. Individuality somehow became mass-produced.

This isn’t me saying you should never buy new clothes. That would be unrealistic. Fashion is fun. It’s creative. It’s one of the easiest ways people express themselves. But maybe clothes weren’t meant to be disposable. Maybe a T-shirt deserves more than being worn twice before it’s replaced. Maybe the people who make our clothes deserve fair wages and safe working conditions. Maybe the planet deserves better than mountains of discarded clothing.

And maybe we deserve better than constantly feeling like our wardrobes are never enough. Because that’s exactly what fast fashion depends on. Not for you to love your clothes. But for you to keep replacing them.

So the next time you find a T-shirt that seems unbelievably cheap, maybe ask yourself why. Because if you’re paying less than ever... Someone else almost certainly isn’t.

So now tell me...

How much can a T-shirt really cost?

“No.”

“Please?”

“I already said no.”

I would sigh dramatically, already preparing my speech about why I absolutely needed whatever I was asking for. And then, almost like clockwork, another voice would appear from somewhere behind me.

“I’ll get it for her.”

That voice belonged to my grandmother.

She never made a big deal out of it. She never argued or tried to prove anyone wrong. She would quietly smile, pick up her purse, and somehow, five minutes later, I would be eating my favourite meal or holding the very thing I’d been told I couldn’t have.

People love saying grandparents spoil their grandchildren. They say it like it’s a warning, as if being loved too much can ruin our personality. And honestly, maybe for some people it is. But for me, it was never about getting what I wanted. It was about knowing that there was someone whose happiness came from seeing me happy.

My grandmother has always had this quiet way of showing love. She isn’t loud about it. She doesn’t make long speeches or grand gestures. She simply remembers my favourite meal without asking, makes sure I get the biggest serving, and somehow always notices I’m hungry before I do. If my mom said no to buying something, my grandmother would often secretly make it happen anyway. Not because she wanted to go against my mom, but because that’s just who she is. Loving me has always come naturally to her.

People might think that’s how you raise an ungrateful child. Ironically, it did the exact opposite. Because when someone cares for you that selflessly, you start noticing it. You notice the little sacrifices. The extra effort. The fact that they remembered your favourite things while everyone else forgot. You stop expecting those things and start appreciating them.

My grandmother never taught me that I should always get my way. She taught me that love can look like a warm plate waiting for you after a long day. It can look like someone quietly saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” It can look like being someone’s favourite person without ever having to earn it.

And maybe that’s the special bond between children and their grandparents. They don’t just spoil us with gifts or food. They spoil us with a kind of warmth that asks for nothing in return. An action that quietly teaches us that the smallest gestures are often the ones we’ll remember the longest.

Looking back, I don’t remember every little thing she bought me. I remember how loved she made me feel. And that’s something I’ll spend the rest of my life being grateful for.

The first time I saw her, she was sitting alone outside the library, staring at her phone. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t angry. She just kept scrolling, her thumb moving almost mechanically, as if she was hoping that if she refreshed the screen one more time, everything would disappear. It didn’t.

By next morning, everyone had seen it. A fake Instagram account had appeared overnight. It had her name, her pictures, and captions that made it look like she had written things she never would. Some posts were edited. Others were completely made up. There were comments from strangers laughing, classmates tagging each other, and people sharing the account because they thought it was “funny.”

No one stopped to ask whether it was real. Instead, they asked each other, “Have you seen the new post?” The account spread through the school faster than any piece of actual news ever had. Every few hours, there was something new. A new edited picture. A new rumour. A new comment that pushed things just a little further.

At first, she tried to defend herself.

“It’s fake.”

“That’s not me.”

“Please stop sharing it.”

The more she explained, the less people listened. Some believed her. Most didn’t care enough to. After all, they weren’t the ones posting it. They were just watching. Just laughing. Just forwarding another screenshot into another group chat. It didn’t seem like much. Until it became everything.

She stopped posting online. Then she deleted her profile pictures. Eventually, she disappeared from social media altogether. A few days later, she stopped answering messages. Then she stopped coming to school.

People noticed for about a day.

“Where is she?”

“Maybe she’s sick.”

Someone shrugged.

“She’ll be back.”

Then the conversation changed. A new trend appeared. A new joke started. A different person became interesting. The internet had already moved on. She hadn’t.

When she finally returned almost three weeks later, she looked like someone who hadn’t slept properly in months. The loudest girl in the classroom barely spoke above a whisper. During lunch, she sat with her head down, pretending to be busy on a phone that barely lit up anymore. Whenever someone behind her laughed, even if it had nothing to do with her, her shoulders tensed for just a second.

You only notice things like that when you’re looking for them. The fake account had eventually been taken down. The screenshots hadn’t. People still had them saved. Someone would occasionally bring them up as a joke. Someone else would laugh. Someone would say, “Relax, it happened ages ago.” As though time erased the damage. It didn’t.

The internet has its own way of convincing people that cruelty becomes harmless once it’s hidden behind a screen. That words typed with a keyboard weigh less than words spoken out loud. That sharing something is different from creating it. It isn’t.

Because the person reading those comments still has a heartbeat. They still wake up the next morning. They still have to walk into classrooms where everyone has already seen the worst version of them- whether it was real or not. Cyberbullying doesn’t always leave bruises. It leaves hesitation before checking your phone. It leaves fear every time a notification appears. It leaves someone wondering whether the people smiling at them in the hallway were the same people laughing at them the night before.

And perhaps the most heartbreaking part is that the people responsible often never realize what they’ve done. They remember it as a joke. She remembers it as the year she slowly stopped recognizing herself.

For the longest time, I thought my mom knew everything.

She always knew where my missing socks were, how long to microwave leftover pizza without making it soggy, what medicine to give me when I had a fever, and somehow, even before I said a word, she knew when something was bothering me. If I asked her a question, she almost always had an answer. And if she didn't, she said, "I'll figure it out," with so much confidence that I never doubted she would.

When you're a child, your parents don't feel like people. They feel like certainty. They feel like the one thing in your life that's always supposed to know what comes next.

I don't know exactly when that changed.

Maybe it was the first time I caught my mom staring blankly out of the window after she thought everyone had gone to sleep. Maybe it was the first time I overheard an adult conversation I wasn't supposed to hear. Or maybe it wasn't one moment at all. Maybe growing up is just a slow process of noticing things that were always there, hidden in plain sight.

You begin to notice the sigh they let out before answering another phone call. You notice how quickly they change the subject when money comes up. You notice that "I'm just tired" can mean a hundred different things, and most of them have nothing to do with sleep.

As children, we assume our parents are protecting us from monsters under the bed. We don't realize they're protecting us from monsters we can't even see.

They don't tell us when money is tight. We still get birthday cakes with candles, new notebooks before school starts, and the occasional ice cream after a long day. We don't see the calculations happening behind the scenes, the things they quietly decide not to buy for themselves so we never have to hear the word "no."

They don't tell us when they're scared either. Before our first day at a new school, before an important exam, before a surgery, they're the ones telling us everything will be okay. Looking back, I wonder how many times they said those words while secretly hoping they were true themselves.

What surprised me the most wasn't realizing that parents worry.

It was realizing they worry alone.

Children cry when they're scared because someone will comfort them. Parents often don't have that luxury. They carry the stress of bills, work, family, and a hundred invisible responsibilities, yet somehow still remember to ask if we've eaten, remind us to take a jacket, or stay awake until we get home safely.

We spend our childhood believing our parents have all the answers. Then we spend our teenage years convinced they don't understand us at all. But somewhere in between, something shifts. You realize they were never trying to be superheroes. They were just ordinary people trying to make childhood feel safe for someone else.

And maybe that's the biggest thing parents never tell their children. Not that they're strong. But that being strong often means being scared, exhausted, uncertain, and showing up anyway.

Meet Me, Not My Instagram Profile.

“You HAVE to see this guy.”

I looked up from my phone as my best friend shoved hers into my face. We were in the middle of a sleepover, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor in oversized pajamas, face masks slowly drying into the kind that make it impossible to smile without feeling like your skin might crack.

“He’s actually so cute,” she said.

I took the phone.

“...Okay, wait. He kinda is.”

“I know!”

She snatched it back almost immediately.

“Wait, let me show you his Instagram.”

That one sentence. She opened his profile.

“His posts are fine...”

Then she tapped on his highlights. The first one. Then the second. Then another. There was a long silence. She slowly lowered her phone.

“...Never mind.”

I stared at her for a second before we both burst out laughing.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, still laughing. “He just... so cringe.”

“bruh. Why did the highlights change everything?”

“I LITERALLY DON’T KNOW.”

We laughed about it for a good five minutes before moving on to the next victim- I MEAN... profile. But later that night, after she’d fallen asleep and I was still scrolling through my phone for no reason, I kept thinking about it. How did someone go from “He’s actually so cute” to “Never mind” in under two minutes?

Nothing about him had changed. The only thing that changed was how much of him we’d seen. Or at least, how much we thought we’d seen. It made me realize something slightly concerning. I don’t think social media just lets us meet people anymore. *I think it introduces us to a version of them before they’ve even had the chance to introduce themselves. Before you’ve heard their laugh. Before you’ve had an actual conversation. Before they’ve even got the chance to say *“Hi.”

You’ve already decided if they’re funny. Or lame. Or intimidating. Or “our type.” Or not. We’ve become so used to collecting tiny pieces of people that our brains start filling in the rest.

Three gym photos? Gym guy. A feed full of sunsets? Deep. Too many selfies? Probably self-obsessed. A completely blank instagram page with no highlights? Mysterious... or they forgot their password.

We laugh about it, but we all do it. I do it too. One profile, a few highlights, maybe a playlist if I’m feeling particularly investigative, and suddenly I’ve convinced myself I know someone I’ve never spoken to. The weird thing is... we’re probably doing the exact same thing to each other.

Someone might scroll through my profile and decide I’m “aesthetic” or maybe even “cringe” because of my highlights. Or that I always have something to say because I write blogs. Or that I have everything figured out because that’s all they happen to see. And they’ll probably be just as wrong as I was about the guy with the highlights.

Social media has made first impressions faster than they’ve ever been. The problem is, I don’t think they’ve become any more accurate. I wonder how many people I’ve decided I wouldn’t like before they ever got the chance to prove me wrong. And I wonder how many more I’ll keep doing that to without even realizing it.

I was sitting on one of the swings at a nearby park, my AirPods in, listening to music while absentmindedly kicking my feet against the ground. It was one of those evenings where everything felt normal. Children were running around the playground, parents were catching up on the benches, and the sound of the ice cream truck could be heard from a distance. Right beside me, a little girl was laughing as her father pushed her on the swing.

“Higher, Papa! Higher!” she shouted between fits of laughter.

“If I push you any higher, you’ll fly away!” he replied, making her laugh even harder. I smiled to myself and looked around the park, taking in the scene, until my eyes landed on another child about the same age. Except he wasn’t waiting for his turn on the swings. He wasn’t chasing his friends or begging his parents for five more minutes. Instead, he was carrying a large garbage bag, slowly picking up empty bottles and wrappers that had been left behind by everyone else.

I pulled one of my AirPods out and watched him for a moment. Every now and then, he’d glance towards the playground before quietly returning to his work. My heart clenched watching how two children, who couldn’t have been more than a few years apart in age, could be in the exact same park and yet have completely different reasons for being there.

That was when I realised that childhood isn’t measured by age. It’s measured by the freedom to simply be a child. To complain about homework, argue over whose turn it is on the slide, cry because your ice cream fell, or beg your parents for five more minutes at the park. We often think these are ordinary moments, but they’re a privilege that millions of children never get to experience. While some spend their evenings making memories, others spend them making a living.

The little boy couldn’t have been older than eight or nine, yet his tiny hands were busy cleaning up after people who had come to the park for fun. My mind kept drifting back to the thought of what his day must have looked like before he got there. Did he wake up excited to play, or did he wake up knowing he had to work? Did he ever own a favourite toy? Did he ever race someone to the swings? Or had life asked him to grow up long before he ever had the chance to be a child?

The hardest part wasn’t that he was working. It was how normal it seemed to everyone else. Parents walked past him holding balloons for their children. Teenagers laughed with their friends as they tossed empty wrappers into nearby bins. People saw him, but they didn’t really see him. It made me realise how easy it is to become used to something simply because we see it so often.

Child labour isn’t just something we read about in the news, sometimes it’s standing right beside us, quietly collecting the mess we’ve left behind, while we carry on with our day.

And that’s when I realised, that not every child gets a childhood. Some only get the age.

“AI is taking over.”

“I know.”

“No, like... actually taking over.”

“I know.”

“So what are we supposed to do?!”

“...”

That is pretty much how every conversation about careers has been going lately. A few years ago, choosing a path seemed difficult because there were too many options. Doctor. Lawyer. Engineer. Architect. Designer. Accountant. Writer. Teacher. But, it was also easy at the same time coz you just had to figure out which one you hated the least.

Now?

“I want to be a graphic designer.” “AI can do that.”

“Okay... a writer?” “AI can do that too.”

“A programmer?” “...have you seen AI code?”

At this point, the safest career choice might just be becoming the person who tells AI it’s doing a good job. It feels like every time I finally think, “Wait, maybe this is what I want to do,” someone uploads a video titled ‘Top 20 Jobs AI Will Replace by 2030’ and suddenly I’m back to square one. We’re constantly told to “follow our passion.” That’s a lovely advice until your passion appears on a list called Careers That Might Not Exist in Ten Years.

Being a teenager was already confusing enough. We have to choose subjects that influence university applications and careers that apparently might be replaced by software before we even graduate. No pressure. The funny part is that AI isn’t all bad. I use it. Most people I know do. It’s incredibly useful. It easily explains things that are over-complicated in my textbooks, helps me brainstorm ideas, and occasionally saves my grade five minutes before a deadline.

But that’s exactly what makes this whole thing so strange. The thing helping us prepare for our future is also making us question what that future is going to look like.

Maybe that’s the weirdest part. Every generation has had something that changed the way people worked. Machines, the internet, smartphones... they all sounded terrifying at first, but somehow people adapted. Perhaps AI will be the same. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe the jobs we’ll have in ten years have not even been invented yet. I guess we’ll figure it out eventually. But until then, every time another conversation about careers begins, I can’t help but wonder…

will I be competing against thousands of other students, or against the same chatbot that just helped me finish this blog?

A few weeks ago, I was walking back home when I noticed a group of children playing cricket in my building compound. It was the usual scene. Someone was arguing over whether the batsman was out. Someone else was insisting the ball had crossed an imaginary boundary. The game seemed to be operating on rules that changed every five minutes. Then the ball rolled towards my feet. One of the boys looked up and shouted, “Didi, can you pass?” I picked up the ball and threw it back. Then I continued walking, putting my attention back on the music playing through the one AirPod in my ear. A few steps later, something about that interaction felt strange.

Not because of the cricket ball.

Not because of the children.

Because of the word he used.

Didi.

It wasn’t the first time I had heard the word. It was simply the first time I acknowledged it. That was the unsettling part. I didn’t feel any older than I had the day before. Nothing significant had happened. I still spent too much time on my phone. I still left assignments until the last minute. I still laughed at jokes that probably weren’t very funny. Yet somehow, I had become “didi.” Which was weird because, growing up is often portrayed as some life-changing event. Movies and TV shows convince us that one day everything changes. You wake up older, wiser, and suddenly capable of handling life.

Real life seems far less organised. Most of the time, growing up happens so gradually that we barely notice it. One day you’re the child running downstairs to play “Lock and key”. The next, you’re the person walking past it. The strange thing is that nobody tells you when the transition happens. There is no announcement. No official label as the end of childhood. It simply reveals itself through small moments. A younger student asking you for advice. Someone expecting you to have an answer. A conversation about the future. A child calling you “didi.”

A few years ago, university students seemed impossibly mature. Now I’ve realised they’re just teenagers with deadlines.

You can make important decisions about your future and still ask your parents where they kept something after checking exactly one drawer. It’s a confusing combination. The funny part is that when I watch those children playing cricket downstairs, I don’t feel very different from them. I still remember racing downstairs after finishing homework. I remember arguing over rules. I remember refusing to go home when the game was getting interesting. Those memories don’t feel distant. They feel recent.

Yet somehow, I am no longer part of that group. Not just because I’ve grown physically. Also not because my childhood disappeared overnight. Simply because time kept circulating. Growing up is weird. It doesn’t arrive all at once. It arrives in pieces. In conversations about the future. In responsibilities that slowly increase. In younger children who seem to get younger every year.

And sometimes, it arrives in the form of a cricket ball rolling towards your feet and a voice calling out from across the compound.

“Didi, can you pass?”

And for the first time, you realise they aren’t talking to another kid anymore. They’re talking to you.