Those were the days. The moment summer vacations began, a child's world transformed. Some rushed off to their grandmother's house; others to a village where grandparents waited with open arms. There were mango orchards to climb, hills to explore, ponds to splash in, and endless afternoons spent reading comics under a fan that groaned in the heat.

The whistle of a speeding train cuts through the evening air. Four boys stand smiling beside a railway track, their mobile phones held high. One stretches his arm a little further for the “perfect selfie”. They laugh. They pose. They want one dramatic picture for social media. A second later, the train crushes them. Their final photograph never gets uploaded.

In our beautiful country, elections arrive like weddings, cricket finals, and mythological serials rolled into one giant circus. Loudspeakers scream. Helicopters rain petals. Anchors lose their voices. And politicians distribute promises like halwa-poori at a bhandara. For tourists, India offers the grand spectacle called ‘The Great Jumla Olympics’.

Those were the days! As the fierce North Indian sun finally slipped away, painting the sky in soft purple, something beautiful happened in every home. The day’s heat began to fade, and the real heart of the house moved upstairs, to the chhat, the terrace.

Chambal. Merely uttering the name once made the heart skip a beat. Straddling the borders of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, the ravines of Chambal were no ordinary geographical feature. They resembled the torn chest of the earth itself, deep, twisting, mysterious. Even sunlight seemed hesitant to descend fully there, as if afraid it might never return. Dust rose in clouds, each particle carrying the weight of an unfinished story. In places, the silence was so thick it rang in the ears; elsewhere, a sudden sound from an unknown direction would quicken the pulse.

The night feels endless. Thick. Suffocating. Every street corner, every newsroom, every whisper asks the same question. When will dawn break? No one answers. Not the generals. Not the presidents. Not even the prophets. The powerful look up. The helpless look within.