The Currency Of Being Seen

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There is a peculiar discomfort that comes with being seen.

Not the kind of being seen that comes from love, or intimacy, or the quiet recognition of someone who knows your soul — but the kind that comes from numbers. Followers. Views. Reach. Engagement. The strange currency of relevance.

I have lived on both sides of that line.

There was a time when my posts would gather thousands of likes without effort, when visibility felt organic, almost incidental. And now, there are days when a post barely crosses a hundred. The algorithm shifts, the audience shifts, and somewhere within that, you are expected to remain unchanged — or perhaps, more accurately, endlessly adaptable.

But something happened recently that made me pause more deeply than fluctuating numbers ever could.

A friend — not a close one, but close enough — reached out. Casual conversation. He asked about my children. I told him, plainly, that I had just lost two of them. There are sentences in life that should alter the tone of everything that follows. That was one of them.

And yet, not even four hours later, the conversation pivoted.

A collaboration request.

A tag.

An opportunity.

It wasn’t even subtle.

He admitted, without quite admitting it, that he had gone to my profile, seen my following, seen my recent collaborations, and decided — as people do — that this was a moment worth leveraging. Strike while the iron is hot.

There was no malice in the traditional sense. Just… opportunism. The quiet, socially acceptable kind.

And that is what unsettled me.

Because this wasn’t an isolated moment. It echoed something another acquaintance — far more blunt, far less kind — had said to me recently. He questioned how many people in my life would remain if I were not visible, not followed, not useful to their digital presence. If I stopped making reels. If I stopped being “someone”.

At the time, I dismissed it as cynicism.

Now, I am not so sure.

Because when you occupy any form of public space — even a modest one — you become, whether you like it or not, a resource. A platform. A possibility. And people, consciously or otherwise, begin to orient themselves around that.

Some come for connection.

Some come for curiosity.

Some come for what you can offer.

And the difficult truth is — it is not always easy to tell the difference.

But here is where I stand, and perhaps where I have always stood:

I have never built my presence by attaching myself to someone else’s light. I know people who are more visible, more powerful, more widely recognised than I am — and yet, I have never felt the need to borrow their reach to validate my own. If something I create resonates, it travels. If it doesn’t, it rests. Both outcomes are equally acceptable to me.

Because for me, creation has never been about virality.

It has been about truth.

And truth, unfortunately, does not trend very well.

When I speak about grief, about injustice, about brutality, about the uncomfortable realities that sit beneath our carefully curated lives — the engagement drops. The applause quietens. The algorithm looks away.

But when I lean into easier narratives, into desire, into identity packaged for consumption — the numbers rise again.

This is not a complaint. It is an observation.

An honest one.

We are drawn to what entertains us, not necessarily to what challenges us. And yet, the things that change us are rarely the things that go viral.

So where does that leave someone like me?

Caught, perhaps, between two truths.

That visibility is part of my life now — whether I claim it or not. And that integrity must remain the centre of it — whether it is rewarded or not.

Yes, people will come into my life because of what I represent online.

Yes, some of them will leave when that representation no longer serves them.

Yes, some will stay only as long as there is something to gain.

But there will also be a few — always a few — who stay for reasons that cannot be measured in followers or framed in content.

And those are the only ones that have ever truly mattered.

The rest?

They are part of the noise that comes with being seen.

And perhaps the real work is not in silencing that noise — but in learning not to mistake it for music.

My Brave Daughter, My Gentle Son

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The week passed;
Yet it feels you just left.
Your presence filled our home
Now it feels bereft.

The pigeons coo at the window –
I can’t tell you to shoo them off.
It was your calling –
Now they fly in to roost.

The house is asleep –
Even Zuri leaves me for bed.
You would stay –
For the slightest sound
Made you raise your head.

A protector – and mine by choice –
Your small black face with me –
Your eyes sharp and vibrant –
Untouched by duplicity.

The house is silent with you gone;
You have found Zach somewhere –
You’re both happy together –
Leaving our home bare.

Grief has robbed my sense of time
And I still say “my kids” instead of one –
Zuri misses your bossiness
And how you’d make her run.

Heart heavy, eyes swollen, brain numb –
And if I smile, I cannot forget
My brave daughter, my gentle son.

The Fear of Forgetting

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There is a strange fear that comes with grief, one that people do not talk about very often.

We speak of the pain of loss, of the tears, of the emptiness that follows when someone we love leaves this world. But there is another fear hidden beneath the sorrow — the fear that time will slowly take the sharpness of that grief away.

And with it, perhaps, the memory of the one we loved.

That fear has been sitting quietly with me these days.

It has been only six days, since Xena left.

Six days since I last saw her. It feels interminable. Six days since I last held her ears in my hands. Six days since I called out her name across the house the way I had done for twelve years.

“Xena, come in, let’s go to sleep.”
“Xena, come on, let’s go down.”
“Xena, drop the stick.”
“Xena, don’t be irritating.”
“Xena, do susu.”
“Xena, come wash your face.”

Twelve years of small conversations that filled my days and nights.

Before Xena, there was Zoe — a love so deep that when she passed away it felt as if a part of me had been hollowed out. And then Zach and Xena entered my life and slowly they filled that emptiness with other hearts to care for.

For twelve years Xena consumed my days and nights. Her cancer was virulent.

And now she is gone.

When she passed away, Zach had already left just forty days earlier. I was grieving him too, of course. But when Xena went, it felt as if my grief found a new direction. All my tears seemed to move towards her.

Perhaps that is how grief works. It flows towards the most recent absence.

Today her photograph sits in front of me. There is a diya burning beside it. Flowers around the frame. Her ashes resting quietly in a small mud pot.

A card arrived for her from the veterinary hospital where I had taken her years ago. They sent birthday wishes. They did not know she had passed away.

On 22nd March, it will be her 12th birthday.

But she is no longer here.

All that remains are the rituals of remembrance — a photograph, a lamp, flowers, and memories.

Her energy, her vigour, her stubborn personality that filled every corner of the house — gone.

And this is where the strange fear of grief begins.

People say that with time we remember our loved ones even more. But what I have experienced in life is something slightly different.

I do remember them.

I remember Zoe.
I remember Diana.
I remember Rolfe.
I remember Bonzo.

But what remains are fragments — moments suspended in time. A habit. A sound. A particular way they looked at me. A unique bark. A quirk. A memory of how deeply I loved them.

The fullness of their presence slowly dissolves.

And that frightens me.

Because right now Xena is everywhere in my mind. Every corner of the house reminds me of her. Every routine carries her shadow.

But time is relentless. It moves forward without asking permission from the grieving heart.

And I fear the day when she will no longer be present in every thought.

Life, of course, continues. I have Zuri now — gentle, timid, obedient Zuri. She has been a little sad since Xena left. Xena was the dominant one in the house, the loud presence. Zuri lived in her shadow, though she loved her in her own quiet way.

Sometimes I think Zuri might benefit from another companion.

But even that thought carries guilt.

What if a new puppy fills my days the way Xena once did? What if my attention shifts again, the way it did when Xena came and Zach slowly moved into the background of my daily life? Some souls consume your time and energy. Some are quiet loves.

What if loving again pushes memory further away?

And yet that, perhaps, is the strange truth about love.

Each new love does not replace the old one. It simply occupies the present moment more fully.

The past becomes softer, quieter, distant.

Maybe that is not forgetting.

Maybe that is simply how the heart survives.

Still, tonight as the diya burns beside her photograph, I find myself whispering a small hope into the quiet room:

That time may move forward,
that life may demand new love,
that memories may become fragments —

but that somewhere inside me
the love I felt for Xena, for all my kids gone, will never truly fade.