Disturbed Meditations

I have lived a life that my younger self would have mistaken for a well-funded documentary series. Airports have been my punctuation marks; visa stamps, my unreliable memory backups. India, USA, Canada, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, UAE, Ireland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Portugal, Scotland - I have passed through them all, sometimes as a tourist, sometimes as a resident, always as an observer trying to make sense of people and place. And yet, like most people who believe memory is a trustworthy companion, I made a classic mistake: I didn’t write enough down. Now, what remains are fragments - vivid, emotional, sometimes funny, sometimes blurred - like a photo album where half the captions are missing. A few days ago, I visited Turin , my first brush with Italy , and something about it quietly rearranged my thinking. At first glance, Turin doesn’t try very hard to impr...

What is the difference between being alone and being lonely? It sounds like a simple question, but the more I sat with it, the more it unraveled into something deeply personal. Can you be alone and still be happy - truly at peace? Or is loneliness an inevitable companion of solitude? These questions did not arrive as philosophy; they arrived as discomfort. I wasn’t just struggling to live alone - I was struggling to be at peace while doing so. And that made me wonder: am I alone, or am I lonely? Growing up in India, solitude was never something I had to understand. Life was always full - of people, noise, relationships, obligations. Family, friends, colleagues, even strangers formed a constant backdrop to existence. In such a culture, being alone is rarely neutral; it is often interpreted as a kind of failure. You are considered wealthy if you have a loving family, a circle that surrounds you. But what if that same circle makes you feel unseen? What if you are held, but not understood?...

I have been trying yoga on and off since 2005. Over the years, I’ve attended several yoga classes – both offline and online. Some were good, some were forgettable, and a few were frankly demotivating. Yet, despite knowing how good yoga made me feel after a session, consistency always remained my biggest struggle. Until Habuild happened. And I can confidently say this: Habuild is the best yoga program I have experienced so far. Here’s why.  The Offline Yoga Dilemma When I attended in-person yoga classes, I actually enjoyed the social aspect. But everything around the class drained my motivation. Getting ready, changing into yoga clothes, traveling to the gym, doing yoga, showering, and coming back home – for 45 minutes of yoga, I lost nearly two extra hours. And then there was the constant self-consciousness. Looking silly in certain poses. Feeling uncomfortable in tight yoga clothes. Being an overweight person didn’t help – I was always acutely aware of how I looked ...