bhaskar saikia

There was a phase in my early adulthood when much of my life unfolded in forests. By profession, I was there to survey frogs—walking streams at night, listening carefully to calls that rose from the dark. But beyond the work, I found myself wandering deeper into the forest, lingering on quiet trails, allowing it to speak in ways no report ever could.

Those wanderings shaped me. They taught me patience, attentiveness, and the grace of incompleteness.

The forest held a particular stillness—never empty, always alive. Under a sky layered with stars, I felt both small and deeply connected. Dreams did not arrive as grand visions, but as quiet realizations: that an unfinished path can still be beautiful, that silence can carry stories, and that becoming does not always require certainty.

Many evenings ended beside forest streams, where fatigue and wonder coexisted. Like wood singing in fire, something within me burned and softened at once. In rare, fleeting moments—a mist-filled valley, a distant call, a long solitary walk—everything felt briefly whole. The broken tunes inside me found harmony.

The mountains, distant and unmoving, felt like dreams waiting patiently. Walking among them, I learned to walk alongside my own incompleteness. I stopped trying to resolve it. Instead, I listened. Slowly, that unfinished tune began to hum my life forward.

Looking back, those years were not about escape or adventure alone. They shaped how I see the world—and myself. In those forests, amid work and wandering, I was quietly becoming.

That becoming eventually found its way into a song I wrote—born from those nights, silences, and unfinished melodies. For those who wish to listen the (Hindi) song, please click here.