April 27, 2018.
I came back home from Jammu, the regional campus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), carrying a dream and a decision.
I told myself I would stay back in my hometown, Hoshiarpur. That I would create something of my own. Not running the usual race would somehow reward me with peace, meaning, maybe greatness.
It didn’t.
Not immediately, at least.
Instead, it gave me the longest silence of my life.
For nearly two years after that day, I drifted.
No money.
No success.
No “potential” that the world could see.
Friends disappeared.
Opportunities slipped away like sand through open fingers.
I questioned everything, my choices, my worth, even the dreams I had since I was 13 years old, making films on borrowed cameras and writing poems that no one read.
I wasn’t fighting the world.
I was fighting myself.
March 2020.
The pandemic hit, and strangely, so did a reset.
A quiet voice inside said, enough.
I got a job offer in Bangalore, though it took another whole year to materialise.
And on April 5, 2021, I entered a new chapter of my life.
New city. New people. New responsibilities.
No applause. No grand comeback. Just steady, silent work.
Day after day, I rebuilt my confidence, my finances, and, more importantly, my faith.
And yet, the boy who wanted to tell stories never left me.
He waited.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Today, as I complete 7 years since that first crucial decision, I realise something:
I didn’t fail in 2018.
I didn’t waste time.
I was learning how to survive when the dream seemed dead.
And now, in 2025, I am learning how to bring it back to life.
The next chapter is not about survival anymore.
It’s about creation.
It’s about completing the documentary I shot back when I had no money but infinite heart.
It’s about telling the stories I was born to tell.
It’s about making peace with the past — not to stay there, but to rise from it.
I don’t have all the answers yet.
But I have the silence.
I have the scars.
I have the survival.
And finally,
I have the story.
And this time, I’m ready to tell it.
