105. My river lessons

Hazy memories of my first crossing a river on a sunny afternoon are still alive in my mind. An army man had walked me across the rocky bed of the river. It was much later that Heraclitus’ most quoted words had occurred to me: you cannot step into the same river twice. Years later, I stood again at the riverfront in Nanded without stepping into the Godavari this time, aware that Guru Gobind Singh had once lived by its banks.

Without a cultural overdose, embedded deep in our psyche is the belief that rivers are goddesses to be revered. No one taught us this explicitly—it was absorbed in subtle and profound ways. My grandmother would postfix ‘Ganga’ to the name of any river, big or small, much to the irritation of my younger, educated sensibilities. The philosophical innocence behind such devotion is still revealing itself to me!

I could never hold rivers in ritualistic reverence, yet the sheer mention of a river has always stirred excitement. The river as a metaphor of human existence—holding answers within its flow to our foibles, loneliness, boredom, anxieties, frustration, and helplessness—has remained intriguing but abstract. I often wish I had lived by a river long enough to unlock its secrets.

One such intrigue relates to Gulzar’s inimitable poetic expression–apna kinara nadiya ki dhara hai. How mainstream could anybody’s ‘destination’ be? The expression is loaded; its essence lies beneath the obvious. I have always felt that the mainstream of a river epitomizes continuum; life and death are mere manifestations along its course and cannot truly be destinations. 

My first lesson on karma, the core philosophy of Gita, came while travelling through the Kosi basin in north Bihar. Why would a mother be furious with her children? Perhaps it was the river’s need to correct her course or, more importantly, more importantly, to perform her karma—the thankless task of land-building for human prosperity.

I knew nothing of hydrological engineering, but after that journey I sensed the worst. Just before the devastating deluge of August 2008, we prepared a report on Kosi’s growing frustration at being unable to fulfil her duties. Liberate the river from, we urged, or she will find her own freedom. Our emotive outbursts were no match for prevailing hydro-hubris!

Even the Brahmaputra has honored no boundaries in its multi-country journey. Travelling 500 kilometers along its vastness was a different experience. A colleague once asked if such a mighty river could be dissuaded from eroding its banks. My answer has always been: engage with the river and it will listen. It is a living system with a heart of its own—we must learn to listen to its heartbeat.

My many journeys along rivers have only exposed my inadequacies. Our understanding is shaped by myopic knowledge that sees a river merely as a resource for manipulation and exploitation. Such restricted vision has held us back from understanding an ecological system that is possibly the very source of life on this planet. Each river carries memories of millennia in its undercurrents. 

First published in Deccan Herald on Dec 5, 2025.

104. Sex is temporary, but Love is permanent

Why did I pick up this book? The title itself was a predominant reason - Dear Alyne: My Years As A Married Virgin conveyed something intriguing but notorious and mischievous. The author asserts it to be a work of non-fiction, with all events and experiences truly represented in this autobiographical memoir. With a little more than four million followers, Alyne Tamir is a digital nomad and content creator.

She graduated from Brigham Young University, got married, and by age 25 was a divorcee. Before you wonder how she considers herself to be married virgin, simply put she learnt to love instead of having sex. "Without even realizing the real Alyne hid closed off from the world, from herself, deep inside me in a little box no one could find." Brimming with honesty and confidence, she overcame her sexuality, and an endless cycle of existential crises.

"I don't know how other girls were, but the truth was, I had never wanted to have penetrative sex and had never been even slightly tempted." Alyne spent her whole life being inundated by confusing, problematic messages about her body. But the reality was, neither the pills worked nor any of the therapies. Whenever she thinks back, it made her feel sick. Anything vaguely sexual, even conversations, had a huge negative stigma around her.

Alyne could never think about her past with ease. It made her feel furious and horrified. She felt ashamed of her own natural feelings, punished for expressing affection, and self-policing her sexuality as a crime. That having sex meant that she would become literal trash, dirty and discardable weighed heavy on her mind. But divorce opened a new door for her as she found herself finally-free the expectations of her family and faith (Mormon). 

A divorce or a breakup, Alyne learnt, may seem like a death sentence, but is often has a bright beginning. One learns that profound connection(s) is worthy of exploration, and not something to be fearful of. Sex is temporary but Love is permanent. "I'm realizing that perhaps the most important thing in life is to explore the world within."

103. Nostalgia workouts, anyone!

A friend met me after a long time at a little-known restaurant which we often used to frequent for spending those lovely moments. Nothing recent was talked about; the past was recalled with rejoicing. I guess we didn’t reinvent any moment, we only relived the past. Nothing new was talked about, and yet we were not tired of repeating it. It seemed we had started from where we had left that day, many years ago.

We were being nostalgic, and it made us feel good. Not without reason are psychologists trying to analyze the enduring appeal of the past, which, till recently, was considered a sickness. Derived from the Greek nostos (return) and algos (pain), nostalgia no longer means ‘return of the pain’. On the contrary, it now improves mood, increases self-esteem, strengthens social bonds and imbues life with meaning. Else, why would someone forty-plus be ecstatic about an old forgotten moment?

Many acquaintances have gone nostalgic about ‘rim-zhim’, the popular masala soft drink of the 1980s that is now being revived. One of the strong reasons for relaunching the four-decade-old drink rests on a study which concludes that, among other things, the consumers are becoming nostalgic about their taste. As fashion, lifestyle and attitudes of the past stage a comeback, nostalgia is something the market has prepared itself to reckon with.    

However, nostalgia is not just about happy memories; it can also be about longing for a time when things were simpler or for a time when we felt more connected to others. Nostalgia is a relatively new concept. The word was first coined in 1688 by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer, who defined it as a neurological illness of continually thinking about one’s homeland and longing for return. 

Sheer experience tells us that middle-aged people might score better than younger generations in being nostalgic. Maybe for the modern geeks there are gadgets and girlfriends to keep themselves glued to the ‘present’. But for the middle-aged, being nostalgic reminds them that their lives have been worthwhile, that they are happy, and that life has some sense of purpose or meaning. 

Given the monotony of present-day life, nostalgia is seemingly becoming a great escape to the good old days. But there are those, and a good number of them, for whom the past is a flashback of painful memories. For such souls, ‘nostalgia workouts’ are the next big thing that the neighborhood gyms will soon come up with. But for the blissful, those who have had their first brush with love, being nostalgic is for sure a way of life that is not only personal but private too that the market has yet to tap into!

First published in Deccan Herald on July 3, 2025.

102. Dhai akhar prem ka

Many friends think I'm outdated as I avoid responding to digitally circulated messages and greetings. I consign them to the bin before the inbox runs out of space. There are reasons for such an approach. Such digitally generated and widely circulated messages rarely have personal touch. Digital is anything that is convenient and timely nonetheless, but such messages are bereft of human emotions and feelings. 

I value hand-written letters because we are not pieces of hardware driven by software. For me, there is something profound about sending and receiving letters. Much before it reaches the addressee, letter is written with the recipient in mind, its narrative length is conditioned by the paper of choice, the emotive touch is appropriate to the ink used, and finally the letter is on its onward journey. It takes time, effort, and patience to do so, and wait patiently but anxiously for several days for a response.   

I recall the era when writing letters, especially love letters, was a work of fine art. It's a tangible memory, a document frozen in time. And the act of writing has a humane touch. In a world steeped in digital communication the act of writing a missive is inherently human. A hand-written letter is devoid of any AI prompts which interfere with self-reflection and correct erroneous spelling or grammar. Handwriting communicates our personality in a way that Helvetica or Times New Roman cannot.

I am not alone in what is often considered nostalgic (and in crude terms foolish). Only recently, to revive the art of letter writing, Indian Posts initiated a letter writing competition called, Dhai Akhar (inspired by 'Dhai akhar prem ka', Saint Kabir's famous phrase to describe love.). The idea was to evoke love for letter-writing in a digital age.  To everybody's surprise, it received more than 700,000 entries by the closing date of Jan 31, 2025. For flesh-and-blood creatures, there was nothing better than share life experience in all its richness, risk, beauty, and misery.  

This campaign allows us to express our feelings to bring warmth in our relationship. We cannot upload our minds to the cloud and transcend the world. Honest self-expression through letters puts the sender and the receiver on an equal pedestal. Each feels the importance of having been spoken to. When we try to replace that reality with a digital facsimile, we are lost.