What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?

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If someone asks me this question over a cup of tea, I don’t think I would immediately quote the Bhagavad Gita, Rumi, Buddha, or some motivational speaker.

I would probably take a sip of tea, look at them and say:

“Never say die.”

Or, in the language I grew up hearing and loving:

“Kabhi alvida na kahna.”

Never say goodbye.

Never give up.

Never decide that the story is over.

It sounds simple.

Almost too simple.

But sometimes the simplest things survive because life keeps testing them.

And believe me, life has tested this particular philosophy of mine quite a few times.

I Wasn’t Born With a Philosophy

I wish I could tell you that I discovered this great philosophy sitting under a banyan tree somewhere in the Himalayas.

Unfortunately, my enlightenment was much less dramatic.

There was no mountain.

No meditation.

No divine voice.

Just life.

Ordinary life.

Bills.

Deadlines.

Responsibilities.

Missed opportunities.

Wrong decisions.

Unexpected disappointments.

People who stayed.

People who left.

Dreams that worked.

Dreams that didn’t.

And several mornings when I woke up wondering why I had said yes to so many things.

Like many of you, I have had periods when everything seemed to be moving beautifully and periods when even a small task felt like climbing Everest.

There have been days when I have been full of ideas.

And there have been days when I have stared at the same blank page for an unreasonable amount of time, convinced that perhaps I had permanently lost the ability to write.

Then, usually, something small happens.

A line from a book.

A conversation with a friend.

An old song.

A familiar smell.

A cup of tea.

A memory from childhood.

And suddenly, the mind says:

“Come on. Try again.”

That little voice has rescued me more times than I can remember.

Perhaps Lucknow Taught Me This

I have spent enough time in Lucknow to believe that the city itself has a philosophy.

Lucknow doesn’t seem to believe in rushing.

Everything has a certain rhythm.

The morning tea.

The old lanes.

The conversations that somehow begin with one subject and end forty minutes later somewhere completely different.

The smell of kebabs drifting through the streets.

The old buildings carrying stories from another century.

The leisurely “Aaiye, baithiye” that can turn a five-minute visit into an evening.

There is something about Awadh that teaches you to pause.

And when you pause, you realise something important:

Life doesn’t always have to be solved immediately.

Sometimes it simply has to be lived.

I think I have carried a little bit of that philosophy with me.

When things go wrong, I don’t always need an answer immediately.

Sometimes I need a cup of tea.

Sometimes I need a walk.

Sometimes I need an old friend.

Sometimes I need to write.

And sometimes I need to sit quietly and let the storm pass.

I Have Had My Share of Storms

I don’t want to pretend that I have always been confident.

I haven’t.

There have been moments of self-doubt.

Moments of confusion.

Moments when I’ve wondered whether an idea was foolish, whether a dream was unrealistic, whether I was wasting time.

There have been things I started with enormous enthusiasm and then abandoned halfway.

There have been plans that looked brilliant on paper and ridiculous in real life.

And there have been days when procrastination became such a powerful force that I almost wanted to give it a certificate.

But somewhere along the way I discovered an important distinction:

Failing is not the same as finishing.

You can fail at something without declaring yourself a failure.

You can lose a battle without losing the war.

You can take a wrong turn without destroying the journey.

And you can stop for a while without giving up.

That distinction has become very important to me.

I Don’t Believe We Need to Have Everything Figured Out

Perhaps one of the biggest traps of modern life is the idea that everybody else knows exactly what they are doing.

Social media certainly gives that impression.

Open Instagram.

Someone has started a business.

Someone has bought a house.

Someone is travelling through Europe.

Someone has become a millionaire at twenty-eight.

Someone has written a book.

Someone is doing yoga at sunrise.

Someone has discovered the perfect work-life balance.

And you are sitting in your room wondering where you put your spectacles.

It can make you feel that you are falling behind.

But over the years I have realised something.

We are all improvising.

Some people are simply better at hiding it.

Nobody has the complete map.

We are all walking with partial directions.

So I have stopped asking myself:

“Where should I have reached by now?”

I try to ask:

“Where do I want to go from here?”

That is a much kinder question.

My Philosophy Also Allows for Bad Days

This is important.

“Never say die” does not mean you have to be strong every single day.

I don’t believe in that.

Some days you are energetic.

Some days you are exhausted.

Some days you are inspired.

Some days you can’t even decide what to have for dinner.

Some days you feel that you can conquer the world.

Some days you want the world to leave you alone.

Both are human.

I have learned that resilience isn’t about never falling apart.

It is about knowing that falling apart isn’t the end.

You can cry.

You can complain.

You can be angry.

You can take a day off.

You can tell a friend, “I’m not okay today.”

You can sit quietly.

You can even have that extra cup of tea.

Just don’t mistake a bad day for a bad life.

That mistake can be dangerous.

Never Make a Permanent Decision on a Temporary Day

This is perhaps the strongest belief I have developed over the years.

Never make a permanent decision because of a temporary emotion.

Anger passes.

Fear passes.

Failure passes.

Embarrassment passes.

Heartbreak changes shape.

Even the darkest nights eventually become mornings.

When we are hurting, however, our minds have a strange habit of convincing us that the present moment will last forever.

It won’t.

I have seen circumstances change.

I have seen people rebuild their lives.

I have seen failures become turning points.

I have seen people who thought they had reached the end discover an entirely new beginning.

So when life becomes unbearable, I try to remind myself:

“Don’t write the ending while you are still inside the difficult chapter.”

Wait.

Breathe.

Sleep.

Talk to someone.

Take another day.

The story may look very different tomorrow.

I Have Also Learned to Laugh at Myself

This may be one of the most important survival skills.

If you cannot laugh at yourself, life will become unnecessarily serious.

I have made enough mistakes to know this.

I have overthought simple things.

I have underestimated difficult things.

I have planned things beautifully and executed them terribly.

I have postponed things that should have taken twenty minutes.

And I have occasionally spent far more time thinking about doing something than actually doing it.

But what can you do?

You laugh.

Then you try again.

There is something wonderfully freeing about saying:

“Yes, that was stupid. Now let’s move on.”

Not every mistake requires a three-hour postmortem.

Sometimes you simply need to learn the lesson and continue walking.

The People We Meet Become Part of Our Philosophy

Over the years, I’ve realised that our philosophy of life is often shaped not by books alone, but by people.

An old teacher.

A parent.

A friend.

A stranger who showed kindness at exactly the right moment.

Someone who believed in you when you didn’t believe in yourself.

Someone who failed repeatedly but kept going.

Someone who quietly carried enormous responsibilities without complaining.

I have been lucky to meet people whose lives taught me lessons they never intended to teach.

Some taught me patience.

Some taught me courage.

Some taught me kindness.

And a few taught me what not to become.

All of them left something behind.

Perhaps that is what life really is:

A collection of people, places, conversations, mistakes, memories and second chances.

I Don’t Want to Become Too Serious About Life

I write.

I teach.

I travel.

I think about culture, people, memories, stories and all the strange little things that make us human.

But I have realised that life becomes richer when we stop treating it like an examination.

There is no final question paper.

Nobody knows all the answers.

And there is certainly no invigilator standing behind us saying:

“You have exactly three minutes remaining.”

So I want to keep learning.

Keep travelling.

Keep writing.

Keep meeting people.

Keep discovering old places and new ideas.

Keep asking questions.

Keep being curious.

And, whenever possible, keep laughing.

What Does “Never Say Die” Really Mean?

It doesn’t mean:

“I will never fail.”

It means:

“If I fail, I will try again.”

It doesn’t mean:

“I will never be afraid.”

It means:

“I will move forward despite being afraid.”

It doesn’t mean:

“Nothing bad will happen to me.”

It means:

“Something bad may happen, but it won’t necessarily be the end.”

It doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine.

It means believing that everything can become fine again.

That is a very different thing.

There Is Always Another Chapter

Perhaps that is why I love stories so much.

A story reminds us that a character can be lost in one chapter and found in the next.

A character can fail.

Fall in love.

Lose everything.

Travel somewhere unexpected.

Meet someone new.

Discover something about themselves.

And begin again.

Why should our lives be any different?

Maybe the chapter you are living today is confusing.

Maybe it is painful.

Maybe it is boring.

Maybe you don’t understand why certain things are happening.

But that doesn’t mean the book is finished.

There are still pages left.

And those pages matter.

So, What Is My Personal Mantra?

If you ask me today, after all these years, what philosophy I live by, I won’t give you a complicated answer.

I’ll probably smile.

Take another sip of tea.

And say:

Kabhi alvida na kahna.

Never say die.

Never say goodbye to hope.

Never say goodbye to curiosity.

Never say goodbye to dreams.

Never say goodbye to the possibility of beginning again.

You may change your destination.

You may change your plans.

You may change your profession.

You may abandon one dream and discover another.

You may take a completely different road.

That’s perfectly fine.

Just don’t close the book too early.

Because somewhere beyond the page you’re struggling with today, there may be a chapter waiting to surprise you.

And perhaps tomorrow morning, when the sun comes through the window, the tea is hot, the city begins to wake up, and the world gives you another ordinary day…

You will realise something beautiful:

The story isn’t over.

Not yet.

There are still roads to walk.

People to meet.

Places to discover.

Books to read.

Stories to write.

Memories to make.

And perhaps, somewhere in all of it, another cup of tea waiting for us.

So, until then—

Kabhi alvida na kahna.

Never say die.

Because as long as there is another morning,

there is always another beginning.