Date: 03/09/2026
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Some countries are remembered for mountains.
Some for monuments.
Latvia has something rather different.
It has a remarkable relationship with singing.
For generations, songs have carried stories, language and memories from one generation to another. And when Latvia celebrates its great Song and Dance Festival, thousands of people come together to sing.
That is what makes the image so powerful.
Not one famous singer.
Not one voice trying to rise above everyone else.
Thousands of voices.
Different ages. Different lives. One shared song.
The Baltic Song and Dance celebrations are recognised by UNESCO as an important cultural tradition shared across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
But statistics cannot really explain why such an event matters.
Perhaps the answer is simpler.
When people sing together, something changes.
For a little while, strangers stop being strangers.
A song everyone knows becomes a kind of common home.
I find that deeply moving.
We often talk about what divides people.
But perhaps every country also has something capable of bringing its people together.
For Latvia, one of those things has always been a song.
And sometimes, perhaps, that is enough to keep a memory alive.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

#Latvia #HumanStories #Music #Culture #AroundTheWorld #ConverseWithASmile

Date: 03/09/2026
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There are days when nothing remarkable happens.
No celebration.
No important news.
No photograph worth posting.
You wake up, do what needs to be done, speak to a few people and let the day pass.
And yet, much later, you may remember it.
Not because something extraordinary happened.
Perhaps because someone laughed at something silly.
Perhaps because the tea tasted particularly good.
Perhaps because, for a few minutes, everything felt peaceful.
We are often waiting for memorable days.
But life does not always announce them in advance.
Some of its nicest moments arrive quietly and leave before we realise they were special.
Maybe that is why it helps to pause occasionally.
Not to search for something extraordinary.
Just to notice what is already here.
A familiar voice.
A comfortable chair.
A shared meal.
A quiet house after everyone has gone to sleep.
Perhaps a good life is not made only of great moments.
Perhaps it is also made of ordinary days we were fortunate enough not to miss.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

Date: 02/09/2026
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The television remote disappeared.
Nobody knew where it was.
Naturally, everyone blamed everyone else.
“I didn’t touch it.”
“Neither did I.”
“Then how did it disappear?”
The search began.
Under the cushions.
Behind the television.
On the dining table.
Someone even looked in the kitchen.
“Why would the remote be in the kitchen?”
“You never know.”
After fifteen minutes, my wife walked into the room.
She looked around once.
Then pointed at the sofa.
“There.”
The remote was lying exactly where we had all been sitting.
Nobody spoke.
Finally, someone said,
“It wasn’t there before.”
Nobody believed him.
The mystery was solved.
But the real question remains:
Why can a remote control hide successfully from an entire family?
I am beginning to suspect they enjoy it.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

Date: 02/09/2026
All Rights Reserved by the Author

Imagine a problem affecting an entire community.
Everyone has an opinion.
Everyone is talking.
Now imagine that, instead of arguing through screens and disappearing into separate corners, people actually gather in one place.
They sit down.
They listen.
They speak.
That idea has a long tradition in Botswana.
It is called the kgotla.
A kgotla is a traditional community meeting place and forum where people discuss, deliberate and make decisions on matters affecting their community. It continues to play a role in consultation and information-sharing in Botswana today.
What I find beautiful about the idea is not that everyone always agrees.
They probably don’t.
The important thing is that people come together before the matter is allowed to become someone else’s problem.
There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about sitting under one roof—or sometimes simply gathering in a familiar community space—and talking things through.
And perhaps it isn’t old-fashioned at all.
In a world where we communicate constantly but often listen very little, the kgotla offers a simple reminder:
Sometimes the first step towards understanding is simply to sit down and hear one another properly.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

#Botswana #HumanStories #Africa #Culture #Community #ConverseWithASmile

Date: 02/09/2026
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Have you ever thought of someone without any particular reason?
You may be doing something completely ordinary when suddenly a face comes back to you.
A school friend.
An old colleague.
Someone you haven’t spoken to for years.
For a few seconds, they are there again.
You remember their laugh.
The way they spoke.
Perhaps something foolish you both once did.
And then life continues.
But sometimes I think those unexpected memories are invitations.
Perhaps we should make the call.
Send the message.
Ask, “How have you been?”
We often assume there will be another day.
Another occasion.
Another opportunity.
But a small message takes very little time.
And you never know what may be happening on the other side.
Perhaps the nicest thing about being remembered is that it arrives unexpectedly.
Like a knock on the door from someone you thought had forgotten the way.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

Date: 01/09/2026
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Every family has experienced it.
One person says,
“It’s too cold. Switch off the fan.”
Another immediately replies,
“Too cold? I’m sweating!”
The fan remains on.
Someone pulls a blanket over themselves.
Someone else removes a cushion.
Then comes the most important question:
“Why is the fan pointing directly at me?”
Nobody has an answer.
After ten minutes of discussion, the fan is moved slightly.
Everyone becomes quiet.
Peace returns.
For approximately three minutes.
Then somebody says,
“Actually, now it’s too warm.”
And the entire meeting begins again.
Families can discuss politics, money and the future of the world.
But nothing produces faster and stronger opinions than the correct speed of a ceiling fan.
The funny thing is, nobody ever really wins.
Eventually, someone falls asleep.
The fan continues turning.
And tomorrow, the argument begins again.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

Thank you Blue Star and all my readers and followers .

Date: 01/09/2026
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There are many ways for a nation to show its strength.
Some do it through monuments.
Some through armies.
And then there is Estonia, where one of the most beautiful expressions of national identity comes through people standing together and singing.
The Estonian Song Festival is not an ordinary concert.
Thousands of singers gather, and the audience becomes part of something much larger than entertainment.
Imagine the sound.
Not one famous voice.
Not one superstar.
Thousands of ordinary people singing the same songs together.
That, to me, is the remarkable part.
A song belongs to everyone who knows it.
Perhaps that is why music can sometimes do what speeches cannot. It can carry memory, language and emotion from one generation to another without needing a long explanation.
Estonia’s history has not always been easy. Yet its language, traditions and songs remained deeply important to its people.
There is something wonderfully human about that.
When people sing together, nobody asks who has the most important voice.
For a while, the individual voice becomes part of something larger.
And perhaps that is why a country singing together can be such a powerful sight.
Not because everyone sounds the same.
But because, for a few moments, everyone chooses to belong to the same song.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

#Estonia #HumanStories #Music #AroundTheWorld #ConverseWithASmile

Date: 01/09/2026

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“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
— Jane Austen

We remember many things about people.

Their faces.

Their voices.

The places where we met them.

But often, what remains longest is much simpler.

The way they made us feel.

Some people have a gift for making others comfortable without doing anything extraordinary. They listen without looking impatient. They laugh easily. They remember small details.

And when you are with them, you don’t feel that you have to explain yourself too much.

That is a rare quality.

Life introduces us to clever people, successful people and impressive people.

But the ones we carry in our hearts are often those who were simply kind.

Years later, we may forget what they said.

We may forget where we met.

But we remember the warmth.

Perhaps that is one of the quietest forms of greatness—

leaving people a little happier after they have spent time with you

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India

Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile

Date: 31/08/2026
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Every house seems to have one chair that belongs to someone.
Nobody officially owns it.
But everybody knows.
One evening, a guest came to our house and sat in that chair.
There was complete silence.
Nobody said anything.
My wife looked at me.
I looked at her.
The guest smiled happily, completely unaware.
Finally, someone asked,
“Are you comfortable?”
“Very,” he said.
That made everything worse.
For the next ten minutes, the entire family behaved strangely around him.
Nobody explained.
Nobody asked him to move.
We simply waited.
Eventually, he got up to take a phone call.
Within three seconds, someone else was sitting in the chair.
The family relaxed.
The guest returned, looked around and smiled.
“Ah,” he said. “I understand now.”
We all laughed.
Some things are never written down.
The favourite cup.
The usual side of the bed.
The television remote.
And, of course, the chair that belongs to nobody—but somehow belongs to one person completely.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
YouTube: Converse With A Smile
@conversewithasmile