Meena Mangalathil:

After so many years, I am still surprised that I am here. Not just existing, but here, standing at this point in life, having crossed fifty, quietly walking towards sixty. Sometimes it feels unreal. Not in a dramatic way, but in a gentle, almost whispering way. Like I blinked, and decades passed. Now when I look around, I do not just see people. I see phases. I see stories. I see life unfolding like a movie right in front of me, and for the first time, I am not rushing through it. I am watching it. I see babies, fragile and pure, trying to understand their own bodies. Their tiny fingers open and close as if they are trying to hold on to life itself. Their eyes wander, searching, learning, absorbing everything without knowing anything. Then I see toddlers. Determined, curious, stubborn in the most beautiful way. They reach out and grab whatever feels important to them in that moment, not knowing whether it matters or not, but fully believing that it does. Then come the children. Their w...