I Am – Hearts Still Care

What You Taught Me Not To Be

Published on September 2, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Dad,

Through the years, I have always wondered how important a father’s role is in his children’s lives. To his son, he becomes a model to emulate, an example of the man he might become. To his daughter, he becomes the first example of the opposite sex. In you, we had neither. We had no recourse but to look to our mother for hope and faith in our ability to become worthy citizens of the world: the kind of people who would be valued as a part of society. Hope is a very strange thing. I am sorry to say you provided us with none. I don’t even think you made any attempt whatsoever to provide us with it.

I have always wondered how you chose to become a father, twice, and yet could afford no vestige of parental affection towards your children. You lived your life on your own terms, and you lived in a kingdom of your own making, protecting your own privileges and affording none to the wife and children you chose to bring into your domain. I write this to you wondering what prompted you to behave this way. Why does a father choose alcohol over the family he himself once wanted to have?

Last year was filled with chaos. The pandemic swept across lives, uprooting many and devastating many. People who could afford to live in their homes did; people who were left to fend for themselves had to move. The poor had left their villages and come to the city looking for work, wages and food. With no work, there were no wages and no food. Their employers could not afford to pay them. They did not want to live on alms. So many made their way back to their villages, defying orders. Some were stopped. Some were punished. But they kept going without transport, without food and without water.

I saw their plight, and within their plight I realised I was given hope. Within their plight, I noticed their determination. They certainly had hope. There were migrants who travelled hundreds of kilometres on foot, and yet they carried with them animals that they loved. Through their migration, we learned their stories, filled with grit and stoicism. And I thought of you, Dad. You, who had abandoned your own family. Yet your family survived. After all, we had a mother who provided us with what we needed to become worthy individuals. The migrants survived because they had hope! Humanity survives because we know that today might be cruel, but tomorrow may yet be kind.

I suddenly remembered the boy, Shunahshepa, whose story is found in Indian myth. Once, the ruler of the local kingdom promised to sacrifice his son, the prince, to a god. But then he changed his mind, for he loved his son too much. He decided to adopt a son and sacrifice the adopted child instead. He offered a hundred cows to any man who gifted him a son. One man, Ajigarta, father of three, forced by hunger, offered his middle son to the king. The eldest was dear to him and the youngest dear to his mother. So, the unwanted second son could be spared. Shunahshepa, unloved by his father and the king, started to weep. When those who are supposed to protect and provide for you turn against you to provide and protect themselves, what does one do? Whom could he turn to? In his moment of helplessness and hopelessness, Shunahshepa composed hymns that are part of the Rig Veda. His is the voice of those devoid of hope. It is meant to evoke the spirit of generosity and empathy in all humans.

I always wonder how some people who haven’t been blessed with the love of at least one parent feel. I have a mother who loves me. People tell me to look at the brighter side of things, to see what I have been given instead of what I lack. I did not know whether to think of this optimistically or pessimistically. But then I realised that what they are asking me to seek out is some kind of hope: the thing that poets and writers over centuries have written about. They all speak about humans being humane.

Our world is filled with conflict. With trauma, fear, pain and loss. Where there is conflict, there is raṇa-bhoomi, a battleground, filled with fear, chaos and blood. When you would come into the house, Dad, you would bring in chaos. There would be fights and fear. And there were other times at home when you were not around or were in a stupor, and Mom or Daadi would spend time with us as kids. Then our small world would transform into a rang-bhoomi. Love, ideas and help would be intermixed in our lives.

Daadi would shield us from your abuse when Mom wasn’t around. She would make food for us that I shall never forget the taste of. She sat and watched movies with us that she couldn’t understand because they were in English. She would take us to all the places we wanted to visit. I learned from my Daadi, your Mom, that a generous heart can fill a life with joyful memories. She thought of us besides thinking of herself. I guess that is how she created hope.

There was a story I read in a comic book once, about Gajendra, the king of elephants, who once entered a pond filled with lotus flowers. There, a crocodile grabbed him by his foot and tried to drown him. Gajendra struggled to escape, but the crocodile’s jaws were too strong. No one came to his rescue. Alone, he raised his trunk and begged for help. Gajendra then picked up a lotus flower and offered it to whoever was listening. Suddenly, the clouds parted, the sun shone bright, and gliding on the wind came Vishnu on his eagle, Garuda. Vishnu hurled his discus and struck the crocodile. The crocodile was forced to release the elephant-king from his terrible grip.

The story of Gajendra is a metaphor. In nature, the crocodile is not a villain and the elephant is not a victim. In nature, animals do not ask for help, and no god will come between a predator and its prey. This story is important because we can equate ourselves to it. Your neglect and abuse, Dad, could correspond to the crocodile. My sister and I struggled through the years of fearing you, wanting you to be a better parent. We tried to escape the desire for a father figure. In essence, then, we were the trapped elephant. We waited to be rescued. And in exchange, as the lotus, all we could offer to my Mom or Daadi were our own existences. They derived pleasure from us and, because they were related to us, they extended their love and help. They would be our Vishnu, emerging from the dark clouds to save the day, protect us and shield us from you. In exchange, then, they were given our admiration, support and love.

However, seen as a larger metaphor, this story represents humans dragged down by an uncaring system that impersonally consumes people to sustain itself. Animals are not designed to help, except as members of their herd or pack. But humans can help everyone, even strangers, even enemies. That is why we all have expectations of being helped. I certainly have. I am sure you must have them, too, in some form or another.

We are all children, essentially, standing before a larger-than-life system that acts as a controlling parent. I used to wish that the system would change. I wished that you would change. And there were many chances for you to change, Dad. You did not, but I realised one thing: that I could be what you weren’t. I could be more like Mom or Daadi. I could help those who were seeking help, in some form or another.

Somewhere, caught in my own feelings of inadequacy and victimhood, I realised that thinking about these things only fed my own insecurities about never having had a loving father. The world is a larger place. There are so many elephants who are still trapped in the jaws of other crocodiles. They have no jobs, no business, no income, no savings, no support; they are trapped by debt, insecurity, loneliness and hopelessness. They are crying out for help. I was so focused on my own hunger that I didn’t notice theirs. Much in the same way, you didn’t care about your family’s hunger and need.

You know who else you remind me of? Remember the time when Chacha borrowed money from the family property, and you had a row with Daadi? You behaved like the king of the gods, Indra, who focused only on his hunger and no one else’s. Like in the story when an asura defeated Indra and took all that he had. Indra sought Krishna’s help. Krishna fought the asura and restored Indra’s wealth, and Indra was grateful. However, Krishna did not just want Indra’s gratitude. He wanted Indra to be generous, to share his wealth. He asked Indra to give the Parijata tree from his garden to Krishna’s queen, Satyabhama. But Indra refused to part with this beloved tree. He feared that if he lost the tree, he would lose everything. Giving up even one tree seemed momentous. He was not willing to part with even one possession.

A fight followed between Krishna and Indra. Krishna then overpowered Indra and forcibly took the Parijata tree from Indra’s kingdom and planted it in Dwarka, his home.

You know this is exactly what happened when Daadi asked you to share. When you didn’t want to, she took matters into her own hands and gave Chacha what she wanted to give him from her own property. I guess this is why there are many temples in India to Krishna, but none for Indra. Indra is grateful for his prosperity, but he is not generous with it. You always wanted possessions. You wanted things that were not yours. You didn’t want to participate in providing, but always wanted to possess. This is why you are like Indra and could never be like Krishna.

Indra creates a raṇa-bhoomi, a battleground. You fought for your rights and your entitlements. And I am glad that I do not wish to wrestle for what is not mine. We need to create Vishnu’s rang-bhoomi, where people share and take care of each other. This is not based on laws or commandments or policies. It is based on contentment and empathy: happiness with what you have and concern for what others do not have. I learnt this from my Mom and my Daadi. They struggled to provide, but they were content with what they had. It may not have been a mansion that Mom bought for us, but the home she eventually created came out of hard work and sacrifice. She didn’t do this for herself but to secure her children’s future.

When we are not generous with wealth, we will be surrounded by people who will feel we have stolen their share of wealth. After all, the Earth from which all wealth is generated belongs to everyone. We are all Earth’s children. Why should Earth’s wealth belong to some and not all? Why should Earth’s wealth not be shared with the hungry? These are complex questions with no easy answers. But what is simple to understand is that hungry people are angry people. From hunger, conflict is created, and the world becomes a hostile place. You were angry and you remained so. Because of your anger, there was a time when I was so angry at the injustice of it all. Why couldn’t I have a better father? Why did my mother have to marry you? Why would you abuse me because of your inadequacies as a parent? In my twenties, I was so consumed with anger against all authority figures. But, over time, I have learnt from your mistakes, Dad, and my own; predominantly because I chose to focus on the examples I had that provided hope.

I think what happened last year is a wake-up call to everyone who feels and behaves like you. COVID-19 happened because there are people like you who want everything for themselves and refuse to share what they have. The Earth’s resources are being plundered as we speak. Have you imagined what it means when we say that over half of the world’s net wealth belongs to the top 1% of the entire world population? This just means that a very few people in this world corner all the wealth. Not only do they have it, but they are too insecure to share it. The rest of the population feel tricked, cheated, denied, deprived, oppressed and abandoned. When social injustice like this happens, Vishnu has to wake up.

When the Earth is happy, Vishnu sleeps under the hood and on the coils of a serpent that floats on the ocean of milk. But when the Earth cries, he descends to the realm of mortals as a mortal. He becomes a king and a cowherd, his avatars, to teach the world what it means to be human. We need to do daan. Be generous.

How difficult is it to help your domestic help when they can’t afford to buy groceries? How difficult is it to reach out to your friend who cannot pay his rent because of a pay cut? How difficult is it to take care of an abandoned animal you see on the road? Why can we not find meaning in committing the tiniest act of generosity, if we cannot be selfless?

Why must we be like Indra and think only of our hunger? Isn’t being human also equivalent to being empathetic to all? We must learn to share. If we pass on our hungers, fears and delusions, why can we also not learn to create a generous heart and a desire to share? If only we could learn to give before we ask, provide before we receive, show that we can be helpful before we ask for help. Isn’t that what being a good father means? Isn’t that what being a good human being means?

I wish you could have seen this and understood this. But your being you has taught me how not to be you. Your presence has served a purpose in my life. It has shown me what I can do better, how I can be better. I must say, you have shown me, by your example, what I should not be. And by setting that example, I can love and care for the people who care about me. If need be, I can also be there for those to whom I owe nothing. So, in essence, you were a father, since you taught me something invaluable. And so, I thank you.

In gratitude,

Your son.

Why I Do Not Travel

Published on May 11, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There are people whose souls awaken at airports.

People who feel restless unless they are planning a trip, booking tickets, standing in immigration queues with headphones on and a passport in hand, convinced that somewhere else — another city, another country, another landscape — life will briefly become more meaningful than the one they currently inhabit.

I have never been one of them.

And for a long time, I wondered if there was something wrong with me because of it.

People around me speak of travel with almost religious intensity. The guys, my mother, my cousin, well, my family, I would say, has that unmistakable “keeda” of travel in them — that hunger to move, to see, to constantly experience new places. I admire it in them. Sometimes I even envy it. I wish I possessed that same excitement at the thought of boarding a plane and disappearing into another country for ten days.

But I don’t.

And I think I finally understand why.

The truth is, I travelled extensively long before I ever considered physically travelling anywhere.

I was a child who read compulsively. History, geography, mythology, politics, anthropology, climate, architecture, literature — I consumed the world through books before social media turned travel into curated montages and aesthetic performances.

I did not merely learn where places existed.

I absorbed their emotional texture.

I read about ancient civilisations, wars, migrations, cathedrals, droughts, changing coastlines, empires collapsing under their own arrogance, cities reshaped by climate and greed. I read about the loneliness of industrial Europe, the silence of old libraries, the smell of rain on African soil, glaciers disappearing, forests burning, rivers shifting course.

I learnt about places not merely as tourist destinations, but as living things shaped by history, violence, weather, memory and human failure.

And perhaps because of that, I never developed the overwhelming urge to “tick off” landmarks from a bucket list.

The Statue of Liberty does not call out to me.
Neither does the Louvre.
Nor the Sistine Chapel.

Of course, there is something profound about standing where Michelangelo once stood. About touching marble another human being shaped centuries ago and whispering quietly to yourself:
“I was here too.”

But he is gone.

The moment is gone.

And strangely, that has always mattered more to me than the monument itself.

I also think my relationship with people complicates travel.

I do not hate humanity. Human beings have also given me poetry, music, cinema, friendship, love and tenderness. I write because of people. I paint because of people. I speak because of people. I care because of people.

And yet people exhaust me.

Their arrogance.
Their prejudices.
Their casual cruelty.
Their certainty about things they barely understand.

Even I irritate myself sometimes.

I can spend hours quietly creating something meaningful — writing, painting, photographing, dancing, caring for animals — and still one unnecessarily rude interaction can poison an entire experience for me.

The other day at the gym, a man was rude for absolutely no reason. I became angry and upset. I could have caused a scene. Perhaps he deserved one. But then the entire space would have become emotionally contaminated for me. It would stop feeling peaceful.

That is what people often do to places.

Online trolls ruin platforms.
Bigotry ruins cities.
Racism ruins entire countries.
One ugly interaction stains what could otherwise have been a beautiful memory.

And travel demands people.

You must coordinate with them, negotiate with them, tolerate them, trust them, explain yourself to them. Airports, hotels, immigration counters, tourists screaming into phones while standing before thousand-year-old monuments, strangers carrying their entitlement into every corner of the earth.

Perhaps I am too sensitive for modern travel.

Or perhaps I simply no longer romanticise movement the way the world expects us to.

The irony is that I did once have a great travel dream.

Africa.

Since childhood, I have dreamt of witnessing the wildebeest migration across the Serengeti and Maasai Mara. That ancient dark river of bodies moving across the earth as they have for thousands of years before human borders existed.

Animals have always moved me more deeply than monuments ever could.

But even that dream now rests quietly in the background of my life instead of burning brightly inside me.

And then there are my children.

The impossible ache of leaving them behind.

People say, “They’ll be fine.”

But they do not understand what love begins to look like after years of routine, grief, healing and attachment.

Zoe and Xena would wait by the door. Like Zoe, Zuri stops eating when her routine changes. Her stomach reacts if I am absent during her walks or feeding times. Their emotional lives are intertwined with mine, and mine with theirs.

I cannot casually hand them over to someone else and fly across the world pretending my heart has remained peaceful.

People speak of freedom as movement.

But love roots you.

And perhaps that is what happened to me.

I built a life where meaning did not exist somewhere else.

It exists here.

In my dogs sleeping beside me.
In old films.
In books.
In late-night conversations.
In rain against the window.
In creativity.
In survival.
In memory.
In familiar streets I know how to emotionally navigate.

And maybe that is the real reason I was never bitten by the travel bug.

I do not feel the desperate need to escape my life.

Vacations, for many people, are temporary relief from lives that feel emotionally lacking, repetitive or disconnected. But my life — with all its flaws, griefs, anxieties and imperfections — has never felt empty to me.

It has felt full.

Deep rather than wide.

And I know that is enough.

Still Here

Published on April 19, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I didn’t expect a video game to undo me today.

I was just drifting—scrolling through my PS5 library like I’ve been doing with everything else in my life lately. Looking without really looking. Nothing holding. Nothing landing. And then I opened Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Not because I wanted to play it—just because it was there. Habit. Muscle memory.

The moment my character started walking through the forest, something inside me cracked.

It wasn’t the game.

It was the recognition.

That feeling of stepping into a version of my life that doesn’t exist anymore.

When I checked the save file, it said May 2025.

And I just broke down.

Because that was a time when Zack and Xena were alive. When my world, however imperfect, was still whole in ways it will never be again.

I couldn’t overwrite it.

I physically couldn’t.

It felt like killing something that was already dead. Like I would be complicit in erasing proof that that life ever happened. So I didn’t. I made a new save. Left that one untouched. Preserved. Frozen. Like grief does.

Not in a dignified, poetic way. There was nothing graceful about it. It was ugly. It was helpless. It was that kind of crying where your chest actually hurts and you don’t even know what exactly you’re crying for anymore because it’s everything.

After that I went looking for her.

Goodie Pua.

Instagram first. Then Facebook. Scrolling like if I just kept going I might find something I’d missed. Some version of her that still exists somewhere. I found a photograph I love. One I’ve seen before. It didn’t matter. I held onto it like it was new.

And then a song came into my head.

Mohammed Rafi singing “Waqt Se Din Aur Raat.”

And that was it.

Because today is the 19th.

The day she passed.

Five years.

Five years and I still can’t accept that she’s just… gone. That all of them are just… gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What does anyone do with that?

People talk about grief like it’s something you process, something that moves, something that softens.

It doesn’t.

It just builds.

It layers.

It waits.

And then it hits you in moments like this—when you’re doing something completely meaningless, and suddenly you’re not in your life anymore. You’re standing in all the lives you’ve lost at once.

Pua.

Zack.

Xena.

Do you know what it feels like to carry that many ghosts?

Because I do.

And I’m tired.

I’m so tired of being the one who survives everything.

There’s something deeply unfair about it. About watching everyone you love leave—whether through death or distance or whatever cruel mechanism life chooses—and you’re just… still here.

Still expected to function. To eat. To talk. To show up. To carry on like this is normal.

It’s not normal.

It’s not okay.

And I’m not okay with it.

When Christina waved at me from the car today, I waved back. And in that exact moment, something inside me just… dropped.

Because I’ve lived that wave before.

I’ve lived the kind that ends everything.

And my body remembers it, even when I don’t want to.

That’s the thing no one tells you—your body keeps score in ways your mind can’t control. A simple goodbye isn’t simple anymore. It’s loaded. It’s dangerous. It’s a reminder of how quickly everything can be taken.

And then I start thinking—

What is the point of any of this?

Where is this going?

How much more loss is waiting for me?

Because it feels endless.

And I don’t have some beautiful, hopeful answer.

If I’m being completely honest—the only reason I’m still here is Zuri.

That’s it.

Not purpose. Not passion. Not some belief in life getting better.

Just her.

Because she needs me.

Because I know how to love her in a way that feels right. In a way that feels like the only thing I haven’t completely failed at.

And even as I say that, there’s this voice in my head that says—

“Maybe even she will be fine without you.”

And that thought… that thought is brutal.

Because it makes everything feel even smaller. Even more pointless. Like I’m holding on for something that may not even need me the way I need it.

But then there’s this other truth. One I don’t even understand myself.

I always come back.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even feel like I want to sometimes.

But I do.

Every time I’ve hit this place—where everything feels meaningless, where the weight feels unbearable, where I genuinely don’t see the point—I still somehow find myself waking up the next day. Breathing. Moving. Existing.

Not healed.

Not better.

Just… still here.

And I don’t know if that’s strength or habit or just survival instinct refusing to let go.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe this isn’t a story about healing.

Maybe it’s just the truth of what it is to live like this—

Carrying too much.

Remembering too much.

Losing too much.

And still, somehow, being forced to continue.

Today isn’t a lesson.