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16 September 2026

In Armenia, stone is more than a building material.

It has become part of the country’s visual language.

Across the Armenian landscape stand ancient monasteries, churches and stone crosses known as khachkars. These carved stones are among the most distinctive expressions of Armenian religious and artistic tradition.

A khachkar is not simply a cross carved into stone. The designs can be remarkably intricate, with patterns of leaves, knots and geometric forms surrounding the central cross.

The tradition is centuries old.

What is striking is the patience behind it. A craftsman works slowly on a material that appears unforgiving, turning a solid block of stone into something delicate and detailed.

Armenia’s landscape therefore carries a remarkable conversation between nature, faith and craftsmanship.

The mountains provide the setting.

The stone provides the material.

And generations of human hands have given it meaning.

In an age of rapidly changing technology, there is something quietly powerful about an art that asks its maker to work patiently with the same basic material used by people centuries ago.

Some stories are written in books.

Others are carved into stone and left for future generations to read.

#Armenia #Khachkar #Heritage #RajatChandraSarmah

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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16 September 2026

There is a life we show the world.

And there is another life that nobody sees.

The photograph may show the smile, but not the difficult morning before it.

The achievement may be announced, but not the years of uncertainty that came before it.

A family photograph may look perfect, while somewhere outside the frame there may be a worry that nobody wants to discuss.

We have become very good at displaying moments.

But life is not made only of displayable moments.

Some of our most important victories happen quietly.

Getting out of bed on a difficult day.

Forgiving someone without making an announcement.

Starting again after something has failed.

Sitting beside someone who needs company without knowing what to say.

These things rarely receive applause.

They may not even be noticed.

But they count.

Perhaps we should be kinder when we look at other people’s lives—and kinder when we look at our own.

Nobody carries a completely uncomplicated story.

Every face has a chapter we cannot see.

And perhaps that is why a little understanding can sometimes mean more than a great deal of advice.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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15 September 2026

Every house has one chair that seems to have a life of its own.

Nobody officially owns it.

Yet somehow, everyone knows who usually sits there.

It may be the chair beside the window, the one with the best view. Or the old armchair that has survived several attempts to replace it.

It has probably heard arguments, celebrations, phone conversations and long periods of silence.

Perhaps someone once sat there every afternoon with a newspaper.

Perhaps children climbed onto it when they were small.

Perhaps a guest who came for tea twenty years ago left behind a story that is still occasionally remembered.

Furniture is strange that way.

We think we own it.

But after enough years, it becomes part of the history of the house.

Then one day, we move a chair to another room and the whole place feels slightly different.

Nothing important has changed.

And yet something has.

Maybe that is why old houses can feel alive.

Their walls have witnessed us growing older. Their doors have opened for people who mattered. Their corners have quietly held memories we never thought to preserve.

A chair is only a chair.

Until it becomes part of your life.

Then it is something else entirely.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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15 September 2026

In Samoa, the ocean is not simply something seen from the shore.

It is part of life.

The islands of Samoa have traditionally depended upon the sea for food, travel and connection between communities. Fishing knowledge, passed through generations, has been closely tied to an understanding of tides, seasons, reefs and weather.

But Samoan life has another important foundation: fa’a Samoa, often translated as “the Samoan way.” It places strong value on family, community, respect and collective responsibility.

The village therefore remains an important part of social life.

A person’s identity is not considered entirely individual. Family and community continue to have a significant place in how responsibilities are understood.

That idea can feel increasingly unfamiliar in a world that celebrates independence above almost everything else.

Yet there is something powerful in remembering that no person exists entirely alone.

The sea connects Samoa’s islands.

Community connects its people.

Perhaps that is one reason island cultures can teach something larger than geography: when life is difficult, strength does not always come from standing alone.

Sometimes it comes from knowing who stands beside you.

#Samoa #Pacific #Culture #RajatChandraSarmah

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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15 September 2026

There is a sentence we sometimes tell ourselves too early:

“It is too late.”

Too late to begin again. Too late to learn something new. Too late to write the book, make the journey, repair the friendship or simply become the person we had once imagined.

But time does not always work according to the calendar.

A person can discover a new purpose at sixty. Someone can learn a new skill at seventy. A friendship can begin after decades of living in different worlds.

The mistake is believing that life has only one timetable.

It doesn’t.

Some things belong to youth. Some belong to experience. And some become possible only after we have lived long enough to understand what really matters.

Perhaps the question is not, “How much time is left?”

Perhaps it is, “What can still be done with the time that remains?”

That is a different question.

And sometimes, a much more hopeful one.

There may still be a letter to write, a place to visit, a story to tell, a person to thank—or simply a morning when we wake up and decide to try something we have postponed for years.

As long as we are here, the story has not completely finished.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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14 September 2026

There are two kinds of searching.

The first is when you know exactly what you have lost.

The second is when you have absolutely no idea where you kept it.

The second kind can turn a peaceful household into a crime investigation.

You check the drawer.

Then the table.

Then the drawer again, because obviously the object may have moved during those thirty seconds.

You ask everyone.

Nobody knows.

You become increasingly certain that someone else has moved it.

Eventually, after forty minutes of searching, you find it.

Exactly where you had first looked.

At that moment, there are only two possible explanations.

Either the object was invisible earlier—or your eyes had gone on a short holiday.

The funny thing is that we do this with more than misplaced keys and spectacles.

Sometimes we search for happiness in complicated places, while something simple is already sitting quietly in front of us.

A conversation.

A cup of tea.

A familiar face.

An unhurried afternoon.

Perhaps life is occasionally like looking for our glasses while wearing them.

What we need is not always far away.

Sometimes we simply need to stop searching long enough to notice what is already there.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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14 September 2026

In Timor-Leste, some stories are not written on paper.

They are woven into cloth.

Known as Tais, the traditional textile is made by hand, particularly by women, using techniques passed from one generation to another. Its colours, patterns and designs can differ between communities, giving the cloth a strong connection with local identity.

Tais is worn and exchanged during important ceremonies and social occasions. It can mark relationships, carry cultural meanings and connect families across generations.

There is something deeply human about such a tradition.

A modern machine can produce fabric quickly. A handwoven textile asks for something different—time, skill and patience.

UNESCO inscribed Tais in 2021 on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, recognising both its cultural significance and the need to keep the tradition alive.

For the people of Timor-Leste, therefore, Tais is more than a beautiful textile.

It is memory made visible.

Every thread represents a small act of continuity: someone learning, someone teaching, and an old tradition being given another chance to live.

#TimorLeste #Tais #Culture #RajatChandraSarmah

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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14 September 2026

Memory is a curious thing.

We can forget someone’s name five minutes after meeting them, yet remember a song we heard thirty years ago.

We may struggle to recall what we had for lunch yesterday, but suddenly remember the colour of a school uniform, the smell of an old classroom or the sound of rain on a tin roof.

Perhaps memory does not keep everything equally.

It seems to choose what touched us.

A particular voice. A kindness received when we were not expecting it. A journey that changed something inside us. A goodbye that we thought we had accepted.

Sometimes an ordinary object opens the door—a photograph, an old letter, a familiar perfume, a book with folded pages.

And for a few seconds, the years disappear.

We are young again.

The person who is no longer with us is sitting beside us.

The road we travelled long ago is suddenly beneath our feet.

Growing older may therefore be less about losing the past and more about carrying it differently.

We cannot return to those moments.

But perhaps we do not have to.

Some memories quietly travel with us, wherever life takes us.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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13 September 2026

Most of us have a mysterious place called “someday.”

Someday we will use the good dinner set.

Someday we will wear that special shirt.

Someday we will take that trip.

Someday we will read the book that has been sitting beside the bed for three years.

Someday, apparently, is going to be extremely busy.

We save things because we believe the perfect occasion will eventually arrive.

But life rarely sends an invitation saying, “Today is the perfect day.”

Sometimes Tuesday is the day.

Sometimes an ordinary lunch becomes a beautiful memory. Sometimes an old shirt feels better than the expensive one kept carefully in the cupboard. Sometimes the journey we kept postponing becomes the journey we wish we had taken earlier.

Growing older has a quiet way of changing our understanding of time.

We begin to realise that life is not made only of special occasions.

It is made mostly of ordinary days.

So perhaps we should open the good bottle once in a while.

Wear the favourite shirt.

Call the person we have been meaning to call.

And stop giving “someday” so much work.

It already has enough to do.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

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13 September 2026

There are places where history is written in grand monuments.

And then there are places where history survives in small boats.

In Malta, the traditional luzzu is one such symbol. These brightly painted wooden fishing boats have long been part of the islands’ maritime life, particularly around the fishing communities.

Their distinctive appearance is not merely decorative. The boats reflect a tradition shaped by the Mediterranean, where generations of fishermen depended upon the sea for their livelihood.

For the communities that maintained this way of life, a boat was more than a means of transport. It was part of the family, the occupation and the identity of the place.

Today, Malta is modern and internationally connected, but the colourful boats remain reminders of an older rhythm of life.

That is perhaps the charm of cultural traditions.

They do not always survive by remaining untouched. Sometimes they survive because people continue to value what they represent.

A small boat floating in a Maltese harbour may therefore tell a much bigger story—about work, family, the sea and a way of life handed quietly from one generation to another.

#Malta #Mediterranean #Heritage #RajatChandraSarmah

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com