Category: 2026

Three Days Apart

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

A partner going away for three days should, on paper, seem unremarkable.

People travel for work every day. They attend conferences, visit clients, take flights, stay in hotels, and return home. It is an ordinary part of adult life.

Yet for many people, such situations do not feel ordinary at all.

Three days can seem insignificant. A long weekend. A brief work commitment. Something that should barely register in a healthy relationship.

But relationships are not built on calendars.

They are built on histories.

And personal history often teaches that distance is never just distance.

For some, early experiences of love and loss create lasting associations between separation and heartbreak. Distance becomes synonymous with loss. Separation becomes the first chapter of every ending.

As a result, daily contact can become deeply important. Even a brief meeting, a touch, a glance, or a few words may provide reassurance.

Not because of possessiveness.

Because of fear.

Fear that love might disappear in the spaces between meetings.

Fear that absence might become indifference.

Fear that someone loved might simply drift away.

When relationships are built around extraordinary consistency, daily presence can begin to feel less like a habit and more like a law of nature.

Yet relationships evolve.

Sometimes intimacy that once felt effortless begins to fade. In some cases, betrayal follows. While infidelity can be deeply painful, what often proves even more unsettling is the gradual drifting away that precedes it—the sense that something precious has been slipping away long before it is recognised.

Such moments force difficult choices.

A relationship may end.

Or it may transform into something different.

For some couples, that transformation involves opening the relationship. For others, it takes a different form. Whatever the path, major changes often reshape not only the relationship itself but also future connections and expectations.

Many people who have experienced multiple relationships discover recurring themes. A desire for shared life. A need for presence. The comfort of knowing that someone loved will return home at the end of the day.

For queer people, these challenges can be complicated by family dynamics and social realities. A partner may be welcomed into one household while the same acceptance is not possible in another. There can be limits, boundaries, and compromises that heterosexual couples rarely need to consider.

When a relationship eventually includes living together, daily companionship can feel profoundly reassuring. Shared routines replace negotiated schedules. Presence becomes woven into everyday life.

Over time, life settles into a rhythm.

And perhaps that is why a sudden work trip can feel larger than it should.

Because it is not merely three days.

It is a reminder that life is changing once again.

Modern relationships are often shaped by work. New jobs bring rotating shifts, exhaustion, ambition, opportunities, and responsibilities. Couples may still share a home while seeing less of each other than ever before.

They sleep at different times.

They wake at different times.

They pass one another in hallways like travellers changing trains.

The relationship remains, but its shape changes.

Trust can further complicate these transitions. Even relatively small breaches of honesty can leave lasting cracks.

Trust is a fragile thing.

Once damaged, even slightly, ordinary events begin to feel threatening.

A work trip becomes more than a work trip.

A delayed message becomes more than a delayed message.

Silence becomes louder than it should be.

The mind begins supplying stories where certainty is absent.

When physical intimacy has also diminished, fears that might otherwise remain quiet often find a voice.

Questions emerge.

Has desire disappeared?

Has attraction changed?

Will distance create opportunities for someone else to occupy a place that once felt secure?

The mind starts constructing endings before anything has actually ended.

There is another layer to this dynamic.

Many long-term relationships eventually adapt to periods of separation. Partners travel independently. They pursue individual interests. They spend time apart while maintaining a strong emotional bond.

The longing may remain.

The missing may remain.

But distance becomes part of the relationship’s reality.

Yet accepting distance in one relationship does not necessarily make it easier in another.

Different relationships are built on different foundations. Some are rooted in independence. Others are rooted in shared space and daily presence. The loss feels more immediate when the closeness has been more immediate.

Perhaps what many people fear most is not the trip itself.

It is the possibility that it represents a broader shift.

A future in which work becomes the organising principle of life and love must fit itself around whatever remains.

The arguments in favour of work are easy to understand.

Work matters.

Financial stability matters.

Career growth matters.

People should not be shamed for ambition.

Yet many people live according to a different philosophy.

They do not look at a larger salary and see the meaning of life.

They look elsewhere.

At shared meals.

At conversations.

At affection.

At loyalty.

At the people who make a house feel like a home.

This difference in priorities can create tension.

Not because either perspective is wrong.

But because they speak different emotional languages.

One person may feel energised by achievement and advancement.

Another may feel most fulfilled by connection and presence.

Both desires are real.

Neither cancels the other out.

The challenge is that love often asks people with different emotional priorities to build a life together.

And that can be difficult.

Perhaps three days apart will prove to be nothing at all.

Perhaps there will be longing.

Perhaps there will be relief when the journey ends.

Perhaps life will resume its familiar rhythm.

Or perhaps such moments force a confrontation with something larger.

That love cannot be measured by proximity alone.

That seeing someone every day is not a guarantee they will never drift away.

That distance is not always abandonment.

And that the heart often reacts not only to what is happening now, but to everything that has happened before.

Maybe that is what these journeys are really about.

Not the destination.

Not the work.

Not even the three days.

They reveal the choice that exists at the centre of every meaningful relationship.

Fear urges us to treat uncertainty as evidence that love is already slipping away.

Faith asks something harder.

To accept that no amount of closeness can eliminate vulnerability, and no amount of vigilance can guarantee permanence.

Love has never been the absence of risk.

Love is the decision to remain open despite it.

So when someone we love walks out the door for three days, the real question is not whether they will leave.

It is whether we will allow fear to write the story before it has been lived.

The deepest act of trust is not believing that loss is impossible.

It is believing that love is strong enough to deserve our faith until proven otherwise.

And sometimes, that faith is as simple—and as profound—as trusting that the person we love will choose, once again, to come home.

Cockroach Janata Party

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The Cockroaches Have Spoken

How an insult from the Supreme Court birthed India’s strangest youth movement

India wakes up every few months to a new outrage. A statement. A slogan. A clip ripped out of context. A politician saying the quiet part aloud. Social media erupts, hashtags trend for forty-eight hours, television panels scream at each other, and the nation moves on.

But this time, something unusual happened.

The insult refused to remain an insult.

It evolved.

What began as a controversial courtroom observation by Chief Justice Surya Kant — interpreted by many as likening unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” — has now transformed into one of the most bizarre, hilarious, politically charged, and culturally revealing online movements India has seen in years. (Reuters)

The result?

The birth of the “Cockroach Janta Party” — a satirical digital political movement that exploded almost overnight across Instagram, X, and meme culture, attracting millions of followers within days. (AP News)

At the time of writing this, the Instagram account has crossed an astonishing 16 million followers, turning what may have begun as internet satire into something far more potent: collective rage disguised as humour.

The Remark That Sparked It

During a Supreme Court hearing, comments attributed to Chief Justice Surya Kant were widely circulated online as describing unemployed youth in terms associated with “cockroaches”. The backlash was immediate and visceral. (Business Today)

Soon after the controversy exploded, the Chief Justice issued a clarification, stating that his remarks had been misquoted and that he was referring specifically to people entering professions through fake or bogus degrees — not India’s youth at large. He also expressed pride in the younger generation of the country. (Reuters)

But by then, the internet had already done what the internet does best:

It had weaponised the insult.

From Slur to Symbol

There is something deeply fascinating about marginalised or insulted groups reclaiming language meant to demean them.

Queer people reclaimed “queer.”
Dalit writers reclaimed slurs once thrown at them.
Memes themselves are often acts of reclamation.

And now, unemployed, anxious, digitally exhausted Indian youth reclaimed the cockroach.

Not merely as a joke — but as identity.

The symbolism was unexpectedly powerful.

Cockroaches survive.
Cockroaches adapt.
Cockroaches outlive systems.
Cockroaches are impossible to eradicate.

Almost instantly, “Main Bhi Cockroach” began appearing online. AI-generated posters emerged. Satirical manifestos circulated. Young Indians dressed as cockroaches in protest videos. Meme pages turned into political commentary overnight. (Maktoob)

Enter Abhijeet Dipke

The movement was initiated by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old media strategist and former political social-media worker, who launched the Cockroach Janta Party as a satirical response to the controversy. (Republic World)

Its branding was brilliant in the way only internet-native politics can be brilliant: self-aware, ironic, absurd, and emotionally accurate.

The party described itself as:

“a political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth.”

Its tongue-in-cheek membership criteria included:

  • being unemployed “by force, choice, or principle”
  • being chronically online
  • being emotionally exhausted by the system
  • mastering the art of professional online ranting

Behind the humour lay something unmistakably real. (Republic World)

Why This Went Viral

People will dismiss the Cockroach Janta Party as meme politics.

That is precisely why they misunderstand it.

Humour is often the final language available to a generation that feels unheard.

India today has one of the youngest populations in the world, but also one struggling with unemployment, inflation, educational pressure, burnout, collapsing work-life balance, and an increasingly performative digital culture. (Reuters)

The Cockroach Janta Party did not become viral merely because it was funny.

It became viral because it converted humiliation into participation.

And participation into community.

For years, Indian youth have been told they are lazy, distracted, entitled, oversensitive, unemployed, overeducated, underqualified, politically apathetic, and perpetually online.

The Cockroach Janta Party answered:

“Yes. And?”

The Devdutt Pattanaik Connection

Interestingly, the metaphor itself had appeared earlier in cultural and intellectual commentary by Devdutt Pattanaik, who has often explored how language, symbolism, and mythological metaphors shape public imagination. In some of his online commentary, Pattanaik had also used the term “cockroaches” to describe trolls — people who attack others senselessly and anonymously online.

But when similar imagery emerged from the judiciary — especially in relation to unemployment and youth frustration — it acquired an entirely different moral and political weight.

A mythological metaphor in literature becomes symbolism.

The same metaphor from a constitutional authority becomes power speaking downward.

That difference matters.

The State Responds

As the movement continued growing, the reactions became increasingly surreal.

Reports emerged that the movement’s X account had been withheld in India. Its founder also alleged hacking attempts against the Instagram page. (The Times of India)

Naturally, this only intensified public curiosity.

Nothing accelerates internet mythology faster than attempted suppression.

More Than A Meme

It would be easy to laugh this off as another fleeting internet phenomenon.

But movements like this reveal something profound about modern India.

Traditional politics speaks in speeches.
Young people speak in memes.

Traditional politics uses manifestos.
Young people use irony.

Traditional politics demands obedience.
Internet culture thrives on mockery.

And increasingly, satire has become the only safe language through which disillusionment can speak.

Perhaps that is why the Cockroach Janta Party unsettled people so deeply.

Because beneath the jokes was a truth nobody wanted to confront:

An entire generation recognised itself more easily in a cockroach than in the promises of the system itself.

The Wheel Turns

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

For the last few days, I have been asking the tarot about a little brindle Boxer puppy named Malaika.

Not because I believe cards can predict life with scientific certainty, but because sometimes symbolism becomes a language for emotions too large to hold plainly. Sometimes the cards do not tell the future so much as reveal the shape of the heart standing before it.

And perhaps that is why the readings around Malaika have felt so strangely coherent — as though they are not speaking about fate alone, but about love, grief, memory, fear, and the terrifying courage of beginning again.

The first cards that emerged were the King of Pentacles, the Queen of Wands, and the King of Wands.

Two kings surrounding a queen.

The energy was not chaotic or ominous. It felt protective. Grounded. Warm. The King of Pentacles spoke of stability, guardianship, home, and long-term commitment — the kind of energy that says an animal is not entering a temporary space but becoming family. The Queen of Wands felt unmistakably like Malaika herself: spirited, magnetic, fiery, affectionate, impossible to ignore. And then came the King of Wands — passion, movement, decisive action, the moment emotion becomes reality.

The cards did not feel like they were asking whether she would come. They felt like they were describing a household already emotionally preparing for her arrival.

Then I asked when she would come home.

The Wheel of Fortune appeared. Twice.

The Wheel is not a card of stillness. It is movement, transition, alignment, journeys, shifting circumstances, destiny turning upon its axis. And suddenly the practical reality mirrored the symbolism uncannily. Malaika would not arrive by train after all. She would fly to Pune and then travel onward by road to Mumbai. A literal wheel turning. A journey in motion. Logistics aligning. One life travelling toward another.

Atif would return home by seven to drive me to collect her.

And that was the moment the adoption stopped feeling hypothetical.

Then came my fear for Zuri.

Any person who truly loves animals knows the guilt that accompanies bringing a new one home. Love is never mathematical, but the heart still fears imbalance. I asked how Zuri would react to Malaika and received the Five of Wands, the Seven of Swords, and the The Hanged Man.

Not hatred. Not doom. Adjustment.

The Five of Wands felt like the chaos of puppy energy colliding with established routines. The Seven of Swords suggested caution, observation, emotional strategy. Zuri watching carefully before surrendering trust. And the Hanged Man whispered patience — the reminder that relationships are not always born instantly but sometimes grow quietly over time through shared space, routine, and acceptance.

Then I asked simply:
Will Zuri be okay?

The Justice appeared.

At first I panicked. But Justice is not punishment. Justice is balance. It is the card that says transitions must be handled consciously and fairly. It reminded me that bringing home a new puppy does not mean replacing old love. It means making room for another soul without abandoning the ones already entrusted to your care.

And perhaps that is what this entire emotional journey has really been about.

Because underneath all of this lies Zach. Xena. Grief. Memory. Fear. The unbearable anxiety that loving again somehow betrays those we have loved before.

So I asked the tarot if Malaika was somehow being sent by Zach and Xena.

The Two of Cups emerged.

No dramatic prophecy. No thunderbolt. Just love.

Connection. Continuity. The joining of hearts.

And then, as if the universe had decided symbolism had not yet been heavy-handed enough, my literature society notification appeared on my phone with Eugene Field’s poem Little Boy Blue.

A poem about a little toy dog waiting faithfully through years of absence and dust.

A poem written by a grieving father after the death of his child.

A poem about love remaining behind in objects, spaces, and memory long after someone is gone.

“Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!”

I sat staring at those lines with tears in my eyes because they captured something I have always known instinctively about animals and about love itself.

Love does not vanish because life changes shape.

The dogs we lose do not become erased simply because another paw enters the house. Memory does not die to make room for joy. Grief and hope coexist. The old love remains standing faithfully in the corner of the heart while new love comes bounding clumsily through the front door with oversized paws and bright eyes.

Finally, I asked what the day of Malaika’s arrival would feel like.

The The Fool came out.

Of course it did.

The Fool is not foolishness. It is innocence. The beginning of the journey. The leap taken despite uncertainty. The willingness to love again without guarantees.

And perhaps that is where I stand now.

Not at the end of grief.

Not beyond fear.

But at the edge of a new beginning, waiting for a little Boxer girl named Malaika to come home.