There are gatherings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family that fills every room – voices, footsteps, warmth. Moments where we’re surrounded, wrapped in a kind of closeness that feels like coming home. So, welcome to “Between Hugs And Chatter : With Few Moments Stolen”.

The house is full—of voices, footsteps, laughter that spills from the kitchen like steam. I love them all, every echo of belonging. Yet even then, there’s a quiet part of us that longs for something smaller, stiller. A pause, A breath. Just few moments, softly stolen, to simple be.

To know the deets of enthusiastic embracing with my favorite people, click on Enthusiastic Embracing : My Favorite People – Wander, Feast & Thrive

With Few Moments Stolen : Between Hugs & Chatter

I didn’t know what I was waiting for until I saw it – until I heard it. That first hour in my hometown, fresh from two weeks in Chennai and over 30 hours of travel from Toronto, was strangely quiet yet full – of scent, heat, and familiarity. I didn’t reach for my phone unless it rang or a text arrived, nor did I open my blog drafts except to update. I let the air do the work.

Heard their voices before I saw them—my cousin’s kids, bursting into the house just hours after my arrival, their joyful shouts echoing, bags trailing behind them, sandals tossed aside in a whirlwind of unrestrained childhood chaos. It all struck me with an exhilarating intensity, a blend of unexpectedness and familiarity. In that fleeting moment, every ounce of longing, every ache for connection that had weighed on my heart for years, was released in a profound sigh of relief.

I forgot about my posts. My writing. The carefully packed ideas I had carried with me across time zones. There was something more pressing here—something truer. The way we all crowded into one room like it was the only room in the world. How the kids wouldn’t stop calling us, and my cousin said something, and how my mother looked at me with a kind of peace I hadn’t seen in her eyes in a long while.

But even in all this, I still found myself waking up just a bit later than everyone else. Not because I had things to do—but because I needed to be alone in the house that would soon fill. To sip chai without answering questions. To stand at the window and watch the sky change before anyone else noticed it had.

Those little pockets of stillness became sacred. Not away from my family—but tucked within them, like bookmarks in the middle of a worn novel. Ten minutes to write a few lines. Five minutes to fold clothes in silence. Fifteen, maybe, to just breathe and remember that I’m not just someone’s daughter or cousin or auntie. I’m still me.

It’s strange how we spend our lives yearning for togetherness and, when we finally get it, we still search for a small room within the room. A space that belongs only to us. I’ve come to realize that both are true, both are necessary. The crowd and the quiet. The arms that hold you, and the space that frees you. Without one, the other loses its meaning.