Date: 06/09/2026
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In Georgia, a meal can become something much bigger than food.
There is a traditional feast called the supra.
People gather around a table, food is shared, glasses are raised, stories are told, and toasts become an important part of the occasion.
There is usually someone who guides the toasts—the tamada.
But what makes the tradition interesting is not simply the ceremony.
It is the time people give to one another.
A meal is not treated as something to finish quickly before moving on to the next task.
People sit.
They talk.
They remember.
They laugh.
Sometimes they disagree.
And then they eat a little more.
I find something wonderfully human about that.
In many parts of the modern world, we are becoming experts at saving time.
Fast food.
Quick meetings.
Short messages.
But perhaps there are moments when saving time is not the most important thing.
A table shared with people we enjoy may be one of them.
Georgia seems to understand something simple:
Food fills the stomach.
But good company can fill an entire evening.

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

#Georgia #HumanStories #Culture #AroundTheWorld #RajatChandraSarmah

Date: 06/09/2026
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There is always something waiting to be done.
A message.
A bill.
A decision.
A cupboard that needs cleaning.
A dozen small things that somehow become urgent the moment we sit down to rest.
But perhaps not everything deserves to be done immediately.
Sometimes the dishes can wait.
The unanswered message can wait for an hour.
The unfinished work can survive until tomorrow.
We have become very good at filling every empty space.
And then we wonder why life feels crowded.
I am slowly learning that doing nothing is not always wasting time.
Sitting quietly can be useful.
Looking out of a window can be useful.
Having a cup of tea without checking the phone can be useful.
The world will continue.
Most things will still be waiting for us.
But the peaceful moment we ignored may not come back in quite the same way.
Perhaps wisdom is not only knowing what needs to be done.
Sometimes it is knowing what can wait.

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

Date: 05/09/2026
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Anyone who has lived with children—or even a particularly energetic pet—knows this rule:
Silence is not always peaceful.
Sometimes it is suspicious.
One afternoon, the house became unusually quiet.
No television.
No conversation.
No footsteps.
I looked around.
Nothing.
That was when I became worried.
“Why is it so quiet?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
That made it worse.
I walked from room to room, expecting to discover something terrible.
A broken vase.
A missing chair.
Perhaps an experimental haircut.
Instead, everyone was sitting peacefully in one room, completely absorbed in their phones.
I stood there for a moment.
“So this is what caused all my anxiety?”
Someone looked up.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. “That’s exactly the problem.”
They laughed.
And I learned something important that day.
Sometimes we complain about noise.
But when the house suddenly becomes silent, we immediately start wondering what everyone is planning.
Perhaps families need a little noise after all.
It reassures us that life is continuing normally.

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

Date: 05/09/2026
All Rights Reserved by the Author

There are countries where mountains appear in the distance.
In Lesotho, the mountains are part of everyday life.
The country is known for its highland landscape, where valleys, rivers and dramatic mountain slopes shape both the scenery and the lives of the people who live there.
One of its remarkable places is Sehlabathebe National Park, part of the transnational Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site shared with neighbouring South Africa. The landscape contains caves and rock shelters with an extraordinary record of San rock art, created over thousands of years.
But there is another image closely connected with Lesotho—the horse.
The Basotho Pony has long been an important part of the country’s identity and mountain life. Even today, the connection between people, horses and the highlands remains a living part of Lesotho’s culture.
Perhaps that is what makes this small kingdom so memorable.
Its landscape is not merely something people look at.
People live with it.
They travel through it.
They build their stories around it.
And somewhere between the mountains, the horses and the ancient paintings on stone, Lesotho reminds us that a country’s identity can grow directly from the land beneath its feet.

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

#Lesotho #Africa #HumanStories #Mountains #AroundTheWorld #RajatChandraSarmah

Date: 05/09/2026
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There is always someone we mean to speak to.
We think of them while doing something else and tell ourselves,
“I’ll call tomorrow.”
Tomorrow becomes next week.
Next week quietly becomes months.
It isn’t because we don’t care.
Life simply fills the spaces.
There are errands, responsibilities, messages to answer and small emergencies that somehow occupy every day.
Then, one afternoon, we suddenly remember.
And we wonder why we waited so long.
Perhaps relationships do not always need long conversations or important occasions.
Sometimes a simple message is enough.
“I was thinking about you.”
“How are things?”
“I remembered something today that made me laugh.”
We often underestimate the value of being remembered.
A few words can travel a long distance.
And sometimes, the person receiving them needed those words more than we could possibly know.
So perhaps there is one conversation worth not postponing today.
You probably already know whose number it is.

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

September 4, 2026
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Our neighbour’s dog, Bruno, is a large golden retriever with the courage of a lion—provided there is no vacuum cleaner in the room.

Yesterday, his owner decided to clean the living room.

The moment the vacuum started, Bruno disappeared.

We found him five minutes later behind the curtains.

Only his nose was visible.

His owner called him.

Nothing.

She offered him a biscuit.

One eye appeared.

Another biscuit.

Bruno emerged halfway, collected the biscuit and immediately returned behind the curtain.

By then, everyone was laughing.

The vacuum moved towards the sofa.

Bruno moved towards the door.

The vacuum moved left.

Bruno moved right.

It was becoming less like cleaning and more like a carefully choreographed dance.

Finally, the machine was switched off.

Bruno came out, stretched himself, and walked into the middle of the room as if he had personally defeated the enemy.

He looked at all of us.

I am almost certain he expected applause.

Nobody said anything.

We simply clapped.

Bruno wagged his tail.

Some victories, after all, deserve recognition.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah

Guwahati , Assam , India

September 4, 2026
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In the Japanese village of Shirakawa-go, water is more than something that flows through the landscape.

For generations, the villagers have lived with an intricate relationship with water. Small channels carry clear mountain water through the settlement, and the same water has traditionally served different purposes—washing, irrigation, and even keeping fish.

There is something quietly remarkable about this arrangement.

Modern life often teaches us to separate everything: drinking water arrives through one pipe, waste disappears through another, food comes from somewhere else, and the landscape outside our homes becomes little more than scenery.

Shirakawa-go suggests another way of thinking.

Here, the village developed as part of its environment rather than simply being placed upon it.

Its famous traditional houses, built with steep thatched roofs to withstand heavy snowfall, are only one part of the story. The deeper heritage is the knowledge of how a community survives by understanding the land, sharing resources and passing practical wisdom from one generation to another.

Perhaps heritage is not really about preserving old buildings.

Perhaps it is about remembering how to live.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah

email:rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com

September 4, 2026
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“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard

Last Sunday, I found an old shirt at the back of my cupboard.

It was no longer useful. The collar had faded, one button was missing, and the fabric had become thin with years of washing. Yet I stood there holding it longer than necessary.

I remembered the first time I wore it.

A new job. A nervous morning. A train I almost missed. Someone had smiled at me that day and said, “You look confident.”

I had not felt confident at all.

Funny how an old shirt can remember things that we have forgotten.

We spend so much of life moving forward that we rarely notice what we are carrying with us—small victories, embarrassing moments, people who changed us, words that stayed, and days we thought were ordinary.

Perhaps that is what looking backwards is for.

Not to live there.

Only to understand why we became the person walking forward toda

Rajat Chandra Sarmah

Guwahati , Assam , India

mail : rajatchandrasarmah# gmail. com

September 3, 2026
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Every evening at exactly seven, our cat, Momo, begins her inspection of the kitchen.

She does not meow or scratch the door. She simply appears beside whoever is cooking and watches with the serious expression of a supervisor who has discovered several irregularities.

Yesterday, my wife was making fish.

Momo sat near the kitchen door.

My wife ignored her.

Momo moved closer.

Still ignored.

Then she placed one paw gently on my wife’s slipper.

“Don’t encourage her,” I said.

“I am not,” my wife replied.

Momo looked at me.

I looked away.

A few minutes later, my wife quietly dropped a tiny piece of fish into her bowl.

Momo ate it, licked her whiskers and walked away with the dignity of a restaurant critic who had finally received satisfactory service.

At seven-thirty, she returned and sat beside me.

I understood immediately.

Apparently, Momo had discovered an important household principle: if one human refuses to feed you, there are always other humans available for negotiation.

I gave her another small piece.

She purred.

My wife shook her head.

Momo closed her eyes, already dreaming of tomorrow’s menu.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
email : rajatchandrasarmah
website : www.rajatchandrasarmah.com

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