Arjun had come to the Western Ghats to escape his phone, and for the first hour he failed completely. He kept reaching for it, thumb hovering over a screen that showed no signal. Then, somewhere along the wet, leaf-strewn trail, he forgot it existed.
The forest did that to a person. Sunlight fell through the canopy in soft green coins. A stream argued quietly with the stones. Far off, a Malabar whistling thrush ran through its endless, unhurried song. Arjun sat on a fallen log and, for the first time in months, listened to nothing in particular.
Why do we find peace among the trees?
There is a stillness in old forests that cities cannot imitate — no notifications, no deadlines, only the steady business of living things. Arjun stayed until the light turned amber, and when he finally walked back, he felt as though something tightly wound inside him had quietly come loose.
We spend so much of our lives indoors, lit by screens. Yet a single afternoon under a canopy of green can remind us how little we actually need to feel calm. Serenity, it turns out, is rarely far away — it is usually waiting in the woods.
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