Saad Shaikh, MD

It was a summer afternoon back in 2023 — a sweltering Rajasthani one, the kind where the heat wraps around you like a heavy cloak. Temperatures soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun didn’t just shine — it beat down on you, relentlessly. The ancient stone beneath our feet radiated stored heat, turning the climb into something elemental. We had stopped at Ranthambore Fort on our way from Jaipur to Ranthambore National Park, where we were headed for a tiger safari. It was just my two boys and I. My younger son looked up at the long, seemingly endless staircase and groaned. “Stairs,” he muttered — a tired echo of Po from  Kung Fu Panda , staring up at his greatest foe. I smiled. “Cheer up. This is an experience. Life is one big experience — and if you understand that, you understand the meaning of it all.” As we began our slow ascent, monkeys peered at us from the ramparts, clearly eyeing our water bottles. Then I noticed something unusual: a man guiding his donkeys up the same ...

  Stop. A breath rests between inhale and exhale. A heart waits between beats. But the truest stillness is between thoughts. Here, stress dissolves. Here, life begins again. ----------- The word  “stop”  is universal — instantly recognized in its bold red octagon almost anywhere in the world. But what does it truly mean to stop, not just in traffic, but in life? I captured this image in front of a hotel in Siem Reap on New Year’s Eve 2023. At its center, the flowing curves of the local script add a quiet elegance, like a visual pause within the sign itself. It invites us to look past the literal message and into the subtle stops that exist in our breath, our heartbeat, and even our thoughts. Your breath, for instance, seems continuous, yet hidden within it are tiny pauses — brief moments of stillness. After an inhale, there’s a subtle, often unconscious hold before the body releases into the exhale. After the exhale, there’s typically a slightly longer pause before the ne...