*The Authorship can’t be given to an individual, it is born out of so many aspects known and unknown, in and out of time, we are just vessels through which they flow.
If its still needed, Give it to the sun and the wind that has been flowing through generations nourishing us and our land. Give it to the land, the rivers, the hills, the clouds and the valleys through which the bounty of abundance that we call Life manifests. Give it to all that breathes and that does not from which our ancestors were born and to which we will reside, in due time.*
Give it to all the relationships that we had with our people and the world around us through which all beauty and wisdom is born. Give it to all that is beauty. Give it to all that is wisdom.
*All keeping in mind that the vessel is limited by its perspective.
Where the clouds permeate the mountains and the rain washes away your footprints, there lies a question waiting to be asked.*
I hear it. That distant whisper carried by the wind through the emerald valleys of Meghalaya.
Sitting here, by my window in Shillong, watching the mist crawl up the Khasi Hills like gentle fingers of time itself. The rain taps its ancient rhythm against my roof - a sound that has remained unchanged while everything else transforms around it. My grandmother would call this rain "slap" - the cleansing tears of the sky that nourish our sacred groves, those fragments of forest preserved through generations by our Khasi ancestors.
But today, I find myself caught between worlds - the sacred and the profane, the ancient and the modern, the rooted and the scattered. My phone buzzes with notifications, each a small light pulling my attention away from the rain's perfect melody. I resist its call... for now.
What does it mean to exist in this in-between space? To feel the pull of ancestral wisdom while being swept along in modernity's relentless current?
I invite you to pause here. Feel the weight of your device in your hand. Notice how your eyes move across these words. Are you reading quickly, already anticipating the next paragraph? Or are you allowing each word to settle like rain on leaves?
This is not merely a philosophical question. It is the lived reality of those of us in the Northeast - eight sisters bound together at the eastern edge of India, yet each with her own voice, her own way of being. Assam with her tea gardens stretching toward the horizon. Meghalaya with her living root bridges, growing stronger with each passing year. Nagaland with her fierce traditions and tribes that have preserved their ways despite all forces that sought to change them.
We exist at a unique crossroads of modernity - where smartphones illuminate faces in villages that still honor sacred forests, where ancient matrilineal traditions meet global capitalism, where indigenous knowledge systems face the homogenizing forces of modern education.
This evening, as the rain continues its patient conversation with my tin roof, I ask you to journey with me through this maze of modernity, to examine the consciousness it creates, and to question what we might be leaving behind in our rush toward an uncertain future.
When did you last sit in silence without reaching for your phone?
I remember my childhood in a small village near Cherrapunji – the world's wettest place, where umbrellas are both shelter and symbol. Our days followed the rhythm of nature: waking with the sun, working the jhum fields (our traditional shifting cultivation), gathering for meals where stories were passed down like precious heirlooms.
There was a fullness in that simplicity, a presence that didn't need to be elsewhere.
Today, I catch myself checking email during conversations, scrolling through social media while waiting for tea to boil, consuming fragments of information that rarely cohere into wisdom. My attention has become like water poured over sand – spreading thin, disappearing quickly, leaving little nourishment behind.
Is this not the consciousness modernity creates? Scattered, fragmented, always rushing toward the next distraction?
Close your eyes for a moment. Feel your breath. Notice how difficult it might be to remain with just this simple awareness.