We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious

Host: The morning was still, soaked in mist and the faint gold of a rising sun. The train station outside the city was half-asleep — an old place that smelled of iron, smoke, and memory. The tracks shimmered faintly beneath a layer of dew, and every few seconds a crow would cry out from the electric wire above, as if calling for something that no longer answered.

Inside the small tea stall beside the platform, a kettle hissed. Steam coiled up like ghostly handwriting, disappearing into the air.

Jack sat at a wooden table, his hands around a chipped cup, his grey eyes fixed somewhere distant. Jeeny sat across from him, her fingers wrapped around her own tea, her face calm, reflective, bathed in the soft amber of the morning light.

The radio behind the counter crackled faintly with an old tune.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think about how much of our lives is spent worrying — about what we’ve lost, what we might lose?”

Jack: “All the time.” (He took a slow sip.) “That’s what being human means, doesn’t it? Regret and anticipation — the only things that make time feel real.”

Host: Her eyes softened, but her voice carried a quiet conviction.

Jeeny: “Chanakya once said: ‘We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.’ He was right. Everything else is imagination — sorrow disguised as thought.”

Jack: “That sounds beautiful on paper.” (He smiled faintly, without warmth.) “But in real life, people don’t get to live only in the present. We’re built from our past and driven by our future. Without either, we’d be empty.”

Jeeny: “No, we’d be free.”

Host: The train horn sounded in the distance, low and deep, like an ancient creature waking beneath the fog.

Jeeny: “Think about it, Jack. The past is a chain. The future is another. Only the present is soft enough to hold.”

Jack: “Soft, or slippery?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both.”

Host: Jack leaned back, the wooden chair creaking under his weight. He looked around the tea stall — the peeling blue paint, the worn calendar from last year, the smell of cardamom and coal smoke.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? You talk about presence like it’s peace. But you only get to say that because you’ve never had to live with something you can’t undo.”

Jeeny: “Everyone lives with something they can’t undo.”

Jack: “Then you know what I mean. The past doesn’t stay buried. It has hands. It reaches out. You think you’re in the present, but it grabs your shoulder, whispers in your ear.”

Jeeny: “Only if you keep listening.”

Jack: “You think people can just switch it off?”

Jeeny: “No. But they can stop feeding it.”

Host: The tea stall owner, an old man with a face wrinkled like folded linen, placed another kettle on the stove. The flame flickered, catching the edge of his weathered hands in orange light. Outside, a small boy swept the platform, his bare feet leaving prints in the dew.

Jeeny: “There’s this monk I once met in Sikkim. He told me a story. He said there was a man who carried a heavy sack everywhere he went. When someone asked what was inside, he said, ‘My past.’ The monk told him, ‘Then why not put it down?’ The man said, ‘I can’t. It’s all I have.’ And the monk said, ‘Then it owns you more than you own it.’”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But the monk didn’t live in the world we live in. He didn’t have rent to pay or people to bury.”

Jeeny: “You think presence is luxury. But it’s actually courage.”

Host: The sound of the train grew louder now — a slow rumble like thunder crawling closer. Jack turned toward the tracks, his expression tightening.

Jack: “You talk about the present as if it’s a thing we can hold onto. But it slips away the second you notice it. You blink, and it’s already gone.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the point isn’t to hold it. Maybe it’s to feel it while it’s here.”

Jack: “That’s the problem with your kind of philosophy — it’s romantic but useless. It tells you to live now, but never tells you how. How do you stop thinking about the next bill, or the last mistake? How do you just breathe when everything around you screams urgency?”

Jeeny: “By remembering that nothing you can control exists outside of this breath.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the silence that followed it was sharp. Even the boy outside stopped sweeping, staring curiously at the two strangers talking about time like it was a living thing.

Jack: “You make it sound like life’s a meditation. But what about ambition, Jeeny? What about dreams? The future isn’t the enemy — it’s the reason we get up in the morning.”

Jeeny: “Ambition isn’t the future, Jack. It’s intention. You can chase your goals and still live in the moment. Chanakya wasn’t saying don’t plan — he was saying don’t suffer what hasn’t happened yet.”

Jack: “Easy for a philosopher to say. He probably never stood in line for failure.”

Jeeny: “He lived through wars, betrayal, and exile. He rebuilt kingdoms out of ruin. If anyone knew the pain of loss, it was him. But he still said — focus on now.”

Host: The train pulled in then — its engine roaring, metal grinding, the sound swallowing everything else. Dust and wind rushed through the stall, scattering napkins and ash. The two of them sat still through it, their eyes locked, their silence loud.

When the train passed, calm returned. Only the whistle echoed, fading.

Jeeny: “You can’t rewrite yesterday, and you can’t predict tomorrow. So why do you keep letting both steal today?”

Jack: “Because today doesn’t last long enough to matter.”

Jeeny: “It lasts exactly as long as you let it.”

Host: Her words struck something in him — not like lightning, but like water hitting stone, soft and patient. He looked down at his tea, the surface trembling slightly from the vibration of the departing train.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in rooms that don’t exist anymore — and worrying about doors that haven’t opened yet.”

Jeeny: “Then step outside. The present is waiting.”

Host: She stood, her small frame haloed by sunlight filtering through the stall’s open doorway. The mist had begun to lift from the tracks. The world looked clearer now — sharper, alive.

Jack stood too, finishing his tea. For a moment, neither spoke. Then he smiled, faintly, almost shyly.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? For the first time in a long while, I’m not thinking about anything.”

Jeeny: “That’s not strange, Jack. That’s peace.”

Host: They walked out together toward the empty platform. The train had gone, but its echo lingered in the rails — a hum like the heartbeat of the world. A small ray of sunlight spilled across the ground, warm and honest.

Jeeny closed her eyes, lifted her face toward it, and breathed. Jack watched her, then did the same.

And in that quiet, suspended moment — no past, no future — only the steam, the sun, and the soft rhythm of two lives finally remembering what it meant to simply be.

The world turned, slow and golden. And for once, they didn’t chase it. They just belonged to it.