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HIDE TO SEEK

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 Hide to Seek As a child, I loved playing hide and seek. But I never really hid. I was always the first to be found — sometimes on purpose, sometimes because I simply didn’t want to disappear. I was scared of being hidden. I wanted to be found. My cousin used to tease me, “Aadima, you don’t get it. The one who’s caught first doesn’t win.” But to me, it was never about winning. It was about someone looking for me — finding me. As I grew older, I learned to hide better — in rainwater canals, in overhead tanks, even once inside a well and a washing machine. I learned the rules of the game. I learned how to stay unseen. And when time changes, the games change too. We stop playing hide and seek. --- During a recent locked-in weekend, I watched my nephew and niece play the same game with the neighbor kids. There were only four of them. My niece insisted that I cover her eyes while she counted. I watched the others scatter — especially my nephew, the youngest of all, who hid best. Once, I...

The Art of maintaining friendship.

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  The art of maintaining friendship . People say making friends is an art, and not everybody can do it. To me, that’s true — but the real art is in maintaining those friendships. I often wonder when I see people posting childhood friends’ pictures, tagging them: “15 years of friendship,” “last year of friendship,” “bond forever.” I wonder how they actually maintain that friendship. How are they still connected after so many years? Do they regularly call each other, or just once in a while? Do they share memes often, catch up, rant, or run to each other when life gets tough? Or is it just this mindful “friendship thing” — thinking about each other only when things get hard? Honestly, I secretly feel jealous of them. Because I’ve never really maintained a friendship. To my knowledge, I meet new people, make friends, talk, laugh, rant, and have fun. Then we drift apart, no contact, nothing. I’ve never truly maintained a friendship. Even my parents and grandparents have childhood frie...

Leftover Emotions

How complex it is... How do we start to love someone? It begins with attraction, leading to a crush, and then evolves into idealization. We place them in the highest position and admire them. When we have the chance to understand each other, that admiration can bloom into love. But what if we’re not given a chance to know one another? What ends up as unrequited or unnoticed love can lead to grief—a grief that haunts us for a lifetime. This is not just about romantic love, but all other aspects of love, too. I read about the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That's true. Ironically, acceptance is love, and acceptance is the final stage of grief that allows us to live. To me, love isn't an isolated emotion. Love always comes, grows, stays, and leaves alongside other emotions. I believe love is always accompanied by something else—happiness, sadness, fear, etc. But I've felt two complex emotions with my love—guilt and grief. The guilt echo...

The Voices of Memories

 I always remember a person by their voice. If I hear their name or just see their name on a shop board or any paper, the first thing that comes to my mind is their voice. There are cases where I cannot remember the person’s name, but I’m quite familiar with their voice. There are many forgotten names, faded faces, barren memories, but still, there’s that mild voice of theirs running in the corner of my mind. I still remember the voice of our snake park tour guide—it’s quite bassy, not too loud, but still demanding. I visited there when I was 7 years old. I’m quite familiar with all my schoolmates' voices. Because of this, I’m strong with the words they said. I definitely see this as a gift because, to me, it’s always the voice that seems more familiar than the looks. Only I can experience how deeply that voice touched me, how much comfort those words gave me, how genuine their language was, how concerning their modulations were. To me, a voice is something more intimate than touch...