When the Heart Becomes Audible There are evenings when I can hear my own heartbeat. Not metaphorically, but physically. Thoughts gather speed, responsibilities grow heavier, and the mind begins solving problems that have not yet arrived. In such moments, logic does not help me. Sound does. Chanting, for me, is not ritual. It is return. It is the quiet act of stepping back into the spectator seat of my own turbulence. As a child, I began chanting the Gayatri Mantra. I did not understand its depth then. I only knew that it was something my parents taught me, especially before sleeping at night. It became part of my rhythm, like brushing my teeth or folding my hands in gratitude. The sound settled into memory long before meaning did. Even today, I feel that much depends on what our parents give us in those quiet formative years. What they repeat before we sleep often stays with us for life. The Gayatri Mantra has lived in my mind ever since, and in ways I did not recognise the...
Marriage in an Age of Quick Endings By Nidhi Guglani Marriage, at its best, is a shared decision to witness life together—its seasons, its silences, and its steady transformations. As an institution, it has survived centuries not because it is perfect, but because it has allowed people to grow within it, sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully, often imperfectly. I am writing this on my wedding anniversary, at a moment when two divorce cases are unfolding close to me. Standing at this intersection of celebration and separation, I find myself observing rather than judging, thinking rather than concluding. In recent times, I have seen relationships end at very different points. A marriage barely a month old, continuing despite unresolved emotional histories. Another, built over a decade or more, dissolving quietly because somewhere along the years, the effort to stay connected stopped feeling mutual. Then there is the difficult truth of a marriage that appeared pleasant on the ...