Ravens: A moment that echoes

A Journey of Truth Through Four Lands and One Self

I am too real for the game you play.
I am not a piece on the chessboard called life.
No one moves me.
I move on terms of my own.
I am truth.
And truth, when it is alive and breathing,
is not romantic….
it is Reckoning!

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A Life Built on Truth
From childhood, my highest value has always been honesty.

My grandfather, an engineer like me began every letter with the line:

“Truth is God, and God is Love.” He made me write it too.

We spent every summer together on our ancestral land. That space shaped me. It wasn't just geography, it was ethos. He dreamt of doing something with that land. He never did. But perhaps I will. Quietly. On my own terms.

We studied at the same university. Chose the same profession. Lived by the same code: integrity, truth, and clarity. Even now, long after his passing, I hear his voice in the silence between things.

My truth has never been soft. And those closest to me, often, the ones who struggle most with truth have mirrored that. Small lies, performative peace.

But truth, I’ve learned, doesn’t leave space for pretense. It’s not polite. It burns.

Still, I follow it. Not because it’s easy. But because it’s mine.

I’ve just returned from a journey through Japan, Thailand, Bhutan, and back to Bali…four lands, one self. Across these places, through temples, shrines, cafés, crossings, and valleys one message kept surfacing: Be who you truly are.

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The Raven Knows
In Bhutanese, the raven is Ja- sacred, fierce, and tied to Mahākāla, protector of Dharma. In Japan, it is karasu, or Yatagarasu, the three-legged divine guide. In Thailand, it is i-kaa, resilient and cunning. In Bali, during Galungan and Kuningan, ancestors descend and return. Ravens are considered messengers from the other realm…It is then the raven circles.

Across the 4 lands ravens followed me… Not metaphorically, literally. Across gardens, shrines, monasteries…they would cross my paths and constantly call out to me - as if there were a message or an unfulfilled path i had to follow…

In Kyoto, two appeared overhead as I climbed the steps to a shrine. In Bangkok, one called out just as I reached the summit of the Golden Mount- Wat Saket. And in Bali on Kuningan day, after i returned back from my trip , the priest who looked like my grandfather arrived at my door.

The soul doesn’t chase. It remembers.

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Kyoto : Samurai and Sunrise
That morning began at 5 a.m. with a raven across my window from an authentic Ryokan in the quiet bylanes…I heard a distant sound…a gong, echoing through the streets steeped equal parts in history and mystery. It felt like a signal. I saw a post from a friend: “Sometimes the sounds in the distance are the clearest.”

I followed that feeling to a shrine.

Later that day, we took a rickshaw ride through the Old samurai district. The guide pointed to a large ceremonial gong and said he had only heard it once in all his years. As I raised my camera to photograph the shrine, the sun rose directly behind its apex—and just then, the monk struck the gong. Divine timing.

The gongs in the distance became the gongs before me. A moment where time collapsed. A reminder: you are exactly where you need to be.

Later that morning, I picked up a fortune in a bubble tea shop of all places! (that’s the magic of japan- you never know where wisdom shows up!)

“I will always be loyal to myself, running towards ideals and freedom.”

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Bangkok : The Gong and the View

I was craving a silent refuge away from the chaos of Bangkok. The Golden Mount called out to me! I arrived at dawn…
A monk walked past my car the moment I arrived. Something told me: follow him. So I did. He led me, without knowing, to a beautiful view of the stunning Temple atop a hill. The steps climbed in spirals, each one echoing the intention I had whispered quietly: “truth.”

I reached the top and found stillness. The view stretched out across Bangkok. The noise fell away. A gong sounded a deep, resonant vibration that felt like memory. I remembered Kyoto.

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Tokyo : The Monk at Shibuya
My son wanted to vsit the Hachiko statue in Shibuya. Hachi, the faithful dog who waited every day at Shibuya Station long after his owner passed, is more than a symbol of loyalty..he is a testament to devotion that endures beyond time, a living echo of presence and love.

But Shibuya Crossing is one of the busiest in the world. A blur of feet, neon, urgency. but even there I found: stillness.

There stood a man. Dressed plainly. Eyes closed. Unmoving. A monk, or someone who had chosen to be like one. He wasn’t part of the world’s rush. He was inside it, yet completely apart.

That moment taught me what calm can look like in chaos. Not separation, but sovereignty.

In a world that worships motion, he chose stillness. In a place built on noise, he embodied silence.

He reminded me that Authenticity is strength and presence is power.

Bhutan : The Flame and the Raven
In Bhutan, I made a decision: to walk alone. The group I was traveling with moved at a different rhythm…externally, and within. Something about the pace, the pattern, didn’t align with what I had sensed Bhutan would mean to me.

For 17 years, I had heard about this land from people I deeply trusted. When I arrived, I realized the only way to truly meet Bhutan was to stay back. To listen.

So I stayed back in the beautiful valley of Phobjikha.Everyone seeks spirituality in groups. Mine arrives in solitude.
When I follow my intuition, I find what’s meant for me.

Ravens appeared in Bhutan as well. As they had in Kyoto. As they had in Bangkok.

But in Bhutan, they held deeper meaning. The raven is the national bird: sacred, symbolic. The very crown worn by the King is called the Raven Crown, a nod to Mahākāla, the protector deity of Bhutan, often depicted as a raven. Here, the bird is not just a messenger-it is sovereignty, vision, spiritual guardianship.

This time, the raven appeared in a temple, during a meditation on ancestral healing.

Our facilitator spoke of breaking generational patterns …and I thought immediately of my grandfather.

Outside, a raven cawed.
Later, I looked at my bag and noticed something I hadn’t before: Property Of. That word lingered. The name of the store I bought it from in Amsterdam but also a message. A reminder. Of land. Of legacy. Of something entrusted.

Bali : Kuningan and the Return
When I left for this journey, Galungan had just begun in Bali. It’s the time when ancestors return to visit. Kuningan, ten days later, is when they depart.

On the day of Kuningan, the priest who had officiated a ceremony at a retreat I attended couple of months ago appeared again at my home. He looked uncannily like my grandfather.

During the first Agnihotra (Balinese Hindu fire ceremony) where I saw him, I wrote a letter to my grandfather: words I didn’t know I’d been carrying for years.

As this journey unfolded, and the priest, who uncannily resembled him returned on the day the Balinese believe ancestors ascend back to the beyond- it felt like more than synchronicity. It felt like a circle quietly closing.

The completion felt cosmic.

Being spiritual

The Bhutan retreat was a Spiritual one. But I did it my way- the only way I know!

Being spiritual isn’t about smiling through discomfort.

It’s not about beautiful yoga poses.

It’s about being honest especially with yourself.

It’s about burning the lies you told yourself to survive.

It’s about becoming the mirror, even when it fractures relationships.

Some of the people closest to me: family, friends, lovers have lived lives built on white lies.

On silence. On performance.

My presence has rattled them. My truth has exposed what they wanted hidden. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe I was never meant to stay. Just to light the match.

The flame is not gentle. But it illuminates.

Carl Jung once wrote: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” And for many, the journey begins not in becoming…but in remembering.

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The Return to Being

I left Bombay because I couldn’t breathe in a place that demanded performance. I moved to Bali, where being is enough.

In the West, life is “to do.” In the East, it’s “to be.”

Understanding yourself is power.
Loving yourself is freedom.
Forgiving yourself is peace.
Being yourself is bliss.

You may no longer be in someone’s life. But your truth will echo in it.

I may have been the disruption. The exile. The black sheep.

But I was also the mirror.

I was their reckoning- their call to be truer to themselves.

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Detours and the Home They Built
I used to think of certain moments in my life as detours: those times when a chapter veered off-course because of someone else's dishonesty, or even my own discomfort with conformity. But with time, I've come to understand what they really were: alignments in disguise.

Each detour was a fork in the road carved by my refusal to compromise on honesty. And when I look back, I don’t see mistakes. I see the blueprint of a life that refused to lie.

I built a home out of those detours.

It may not look like what I once imagined, but it is made of truth. It is made of peace. And most of all, it is mine.

As someone once said, “Regret is nothing but quantum homesickness.”

But I don’t feel homesick.

Because I never left myself.

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About This Space

I write from the in-between—where inner worlds meet outer ones. Where the journey becomes the destination. This is where stories unravel and reweave. Where time pauses long enough for you to catch your breath… and possibly, find yourself.