and feel like it glows a little softer than it probably did back then?

Like it has this quiet warmth to it…

this almost cinematic stillness…

as if it belonged in a story

instead of real life.

And the strange part is—

the more time passes…

the more beautiful it starts to feel.

Even the parts that once confused you.

Even the parts that once hurt you.

Especially those.

And you start wondering…

did it actually feel like this?

Or did I make it feel like this over time?

Not the formal kind people make during ceremonies…

Not the kind written in contracts or spoken loudly in front of crowds.

But the quieter promises.

The ones we learned long before we understood what a promise really was.

The ones we absorbed from stories.

From fairytales.

From those moments where a character looked at another character and said something simple… something absolute.

I keep comparing fairytales with reality.

Not occasionally.

Almost constantly.

I’ll hear a story… or remember one from childhood… and somehow my mind immediately begins placing it next to real life.

I start asking questions like—

What would this look like if it happened in the real world?

Why do these stories feel emotionally familiar?

Why do the struggles of fictional characters sometimes resemble things we quietly experience ourselves?

And sometimes I wonder if that habit is strange.

Why compare the two at all? Right??

Even when we know they are fictional… we believe them

Not every detail.

We don’t necessarily believe in dragons or magic spells or enchanted castles.

But we believe something else.

We believe the good in them.

We believe that kindness matters.

We believe courage can change things.

We believe love can transform people.

We believe patience can lead to something meaningful.

And somehow, those parts of the story feel true.

Even when the rest of the world tells us that reality is much more complicated..

We keep waiting for our lives to start.

Not literally, of course. We wake up, go to work, talk to people, move through our routines. Life is technically happening every day.

But somewhere in the back of our minds, there is a quiet assumption.

The real story hasn’t started yet.

They don’t make headlines.

They don’t break the internet.

They don’t look like the kind of achievements we usually celebrate loudly.

But to the person living them… they feel like a crown being quietly placed on your head.

And recently, I experienced one of those moments.

I was chosen as the only intern to feature in the official testimonial video of our School of Ayurveda.

Now if someone heard that sentence quickly, it might sound simple.

Just a student appearing in a video.

But the moment I heard it, something inside me shifted.

Not because of the camera.

Not because of visibility.

But because of what that moment represented.

It reminded me of something I had forgotten.

My life… never stopped being a fairytale.

We assumed they were meant to describe a perfect life.

A world where everything aligns neatly.

Where love arrives on time.

Where courage always wins quickly.

Where every story ends with certainty.

But the more I observe real life, the more I begin to suspect something different.

Almost like they already know the answer.

“Do you really think life can be like a fairytale?”

And usually the answer expected is no.

--

Hey, I reflected on this topic as an escape from my medical internship days, which have been very physically and emotionally demanding. I thought that reflecting on this topic, made me much more aware about the rhythm of everyday,that is not much different than fairytale.

Maybe we are living the fairytales we loved in childhood.

Not because I was trying to prove anything to myself, but because life had its own rhythm. The days were full. The hospital was demanding. The mind was occupied with real people, real illnesses, real responsibilities.

But recently, I started scrolling again.

Not obsessively. Not in a way that feels like an addiction.

Just enough for it to quietly become a part of my day again.

And something interesting began to happen.

I started seeing people my age.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-four.

And they were doing incredible things.

Winning Olympic medals.

Receiving global awards for their work in film and art.

Standing in front of parliaments, changing laws that could save lives.

Starting movements that reshape entire communities.

People my age were doing things that once sounded like fairytales.

And then there was me.

Standing in a general medicine ward.

An intern in a white coat.

Listening to patients’ symptoms, writing notes, checking vitals, trying to keep up with everything that medicine demands.

Objectively, there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, this is exactly where I once dreamed of being.

Years ago, the hospital itself was the fairytale.

The long nights studying.

The anxiety before exams.

The moment I first stepped into medical training.

All of that was part of a dream I once chased relentlessly.

And yet… something strange happens when you begin comparing timelines.

Suddenly, the dream you are living begins to feel… ordinary.

You start asking questions you never intended to ask.

What am I even doing?

Maybe they were always meant to be instructions for how to look at life.

A

A wish.

A meeting.

Real life unfolds in the exact same way.

Most of our lives feel ordinary… until suddenly they aren’t.

One conversation can change the direction of years.

One decision can quietly redraw an entire future.

One moment can divide your life into before and after.

If you look at it this way, life already carries the rhythm of a fairytale.

Fairytales are built from magic, imagination, and impossible transformations.

Medicine is built from science, protocols, and certainty.

One speaks the language of spells.

The other speaks the language of symptoms.

But the more time I spend in medicine, the more I have started noticing something unexpected.

Medicine begins to resemble a fairytale — just without the magic wand.

I don’t just remember facts.

I remember stories.

I remember the feeling of a moment, the way a character made a decision, the way something changed because of that decision.

And sometimes I wonder—

Why do stories stay with us so deeply?

Why do fairytales, something so simple, feel like they teach us more than direct advice ever could?

In most fairytales, the dream comes true.

The kingdom is restored.

The curse is broken.

The love is secured.

The crown fits.

But what if it didn’t?

What if the glass slipper shattered?

What if the dragon wasn’t defeated?

What if the letter never arrived, the door never opened, the transformation never happened?

Would it still be a fairytale?

Or would we call it reality?

Because in real life, dreams are not guaranteed outcomes.

They are attempts.

Efforts.

Directions.

And sometimes — they remain incomplete.

They don’t ease into them.

They don’t negotiate them.

They recognize them.

Two people meet — and something is immediately certain.

A glance is enough.

A dance is enough.

A shared moment is enough.

And the story doesn’t spend much time asking,

“Are they compatible?”

“Do their values align?”

“Can they handle conflict?”

It simply says: This is it.

What once felt like an impossible dream is now, my reality. But now that I take rounds and enquire patients everyday - I think a new dream has taken place in my heart.

Today, I dream of somehow using my music, the songs, the melodies that helped me with my burn out, just until last month- I plan to use that music to cure the patients I meet everyday.

Well, realistically speaking, I can't cure Arthritis and Diabetic patients with music, but I dream of curing their stress. Using music for healing feels like a possibility when I go to the hospital everyday and that's what I am loving right now as an intern.

The process of my thoughts changing to adapt to the life I am currently living. Even now, me and my best friend listen to music to shake off built up stress and exhaustion in a crowded trains, but who knew I could think of it as an alternative medicine to recommend to my patients.

Maybe they won’t feel the cure immediately, but I am sure they will feel lighter, and that's what changing my forever recently.

What I mean is that - I thought I'll be one typical kind of doctor, doing generic stuff, but this idea itself fueled and healed something in me.

Just because medicines and sickness brew boredom and fatigue of the treatment- it doesn’t have to be like that forever.

Nothing has to be the same forever - everything has the potential to change for the better.

About the crown.

The wedding.

The victory.

But as I grew older, I realized something quieter.

Fairytales didn’t teach me what to want.

They taught me how to dream.

And there’s a difference.

Because wanting is specific.

Dreaming is structural.

And I don’t think I believe in fairytales because I’m naive.

I think I believe in them because I’m observant.

Because when I look at reality — closely —

I don’t see less magic.

I see hidden magic.

And maybe that’s why I believe in fairytales more.

Not the castles.

Not the glass slippers.

Not the dramatic rescues.

But the structure beneath them.

Whenever life becomes complicated,

whenever love feels uncertain,

whenever effort doesn’t lead to reward —

I instinctively compare it to a fairytale.

And I ask:

“Why isn’t this simpler?”

“Why isn’t this clearer?”

“Why doesn’t this feel magical?”

But the real question is deeper.

Why do I compare fairytales with reality in the first place?

Why does my mind hold them side by side?

When nothing is wrong.

Nothing is collapsing.

No one is leaving.

No urgent crisis is demanding your attention.

Just calmness.

And instead of feeling relief, you feel… restless.

Why?

Why does peace sometimes feel underwhelming?

Why do we revisit old wounds, replay conflicts, anticipate disasters that haven’t happened?

If nothing ever went wrong in your life…

would anyone want to hear the story?

No tension.

No heartbreak.

No failure.

No betrayal.

No risk.

Just steady comfort.

It might be pleasant to live.

But it wouldn’t be compelling to narrate.

And that’s where the question begins:

Does hardship make a good story…

and when it happens to us, we simply call it reality?

What if we told fairytales backwards?

Not “once upon a time…”

But:

“They lived happily ever after.”

And then we begin.

We start with the wedding.

The kingdom restored.

The curse broken.

And from there, we slowly unravel the story.

The misunderstandings return.

The forest grows darker.

The lovers become strangers.

The spell tightens.

Until we reach the beginning.

Two ordinary people.

No guarantees.

No destiny.

Just uncertainty.

“And they lived happily ever after.”

It’s such a gentle sentence. So harmless. So comforting. Four words that close the book, dim the lights, and send a child to sleep believing the world is stitched together by destiny.

But today, I want to talk about those endings.

Not the castles.

Not the glass slippers.

Not the dragons.

The endings.

Because fairytales didn’t just entertain us.

They trained us — in how to expect life to conclude.

“I’ve outgrown fairytales.”

It’s said casually.

Confidently.

As if it marks emotional maturity.

But what does that actually mean?

Do we truly outgrow them?

Or do fairytales outgrow the version of us that once needed them in their simplest form?

—

Ps. This is 50th Episode… thank you so much for being here. I love you🎀❤️

That at some point, you trade castles for careers.

Magic for logic.

Wishes for strategy.

And maybe I did.

On the surface.

I learned timelines.

I learned realism.

I learned how to call longing “goals” instead of dreams.

But if I’m honest —

I never stopped dreaming about fairytales.

I just stopped admitting it out loud.

It prioritizes function.

It rewards composure.

It moves forward whether you are emotionally ready or not.

Fairytales are different.

They pause.

They exaggerate.

They make space for feelings that reality often compresses.

That is their psychological function.

Fairytales handle emotions in ways real life frequently cannot — not because reality is cruel, but because it is busy.

You see how thin the boundary is between stability and collapse.

A slight imbalance in electrolytes.

A small clot in the wrong place.

A mutation invisible to the naked eye.

And suddenly, the body changes everything.

There is something profoundly humbling about that.

As children, fairytales show us enchanted transformations.

As medical students, we witness biological ones.

Cells divide.

Wounds close.

Inflammation rises and falls.

The body is constantly rewriting itself.

And the more I learned, the less mechanical it felt.

As if belief were something childish.

As if maturity required surrender.

But I don’t think we stopped believing in magic.

I think we stopped believing in certainty.

Spells.

Transformations.

Sudden reversals.

The extraordinary interrupting the ordinary.

Reality doesn’t appear to operate that way.

It feels procedural.

Causal.

Governed by consequence and probability.

So the question becomes serious:

Can reality teach us magic the way fairytales do?

We rarely talk about what they do to us.

Because stories don’t just entertain.

They condition.

They rehearse emotional patterns.

They install expectations quietly, long before we realize we’re carrying them.

That one is faantasy and the other is fact.

That one is entertainment and the other is survival.

That comparison creates disappointment.

But I think the refusal to compare is more dangerous than the comparison itself.

Because comparison is not confusion.

It’s the structure.

Fairytales feel designed.

There is a beginning that makes sense.

A middle that tests the hero.

An ending that feels earned.

Even the suffering fits somewhere.

Even the detours seem intentional.

And real life… doesn’t always feel like that.

Something final.

Something shameful.

Something that means we didn’t try hard enough or want it badly enough.

But fairytales don’t see losing that way.

They never really have.

They wouldn’t be greedy.

They wouldn’t even be dramatic.

They’d be quiet.

Because fairytale wishes are never about having more.

They’re about having enough.

Enough safety.

Enough love.

Enough certainty to rest our hearts for a moment.

If we wished like fairytales, we wouldn’t ask to be extraordinary.

I don’t say that as criticism.

I say it the way you admit something you’ve known for a long time but never said out loud.

In fairytales, kindness exists without suspicion.

When someone helps you,

You don’t wonder what they want in return.

When someone stays, you don’t wait for the moment they’ll leave.

Care is allowed to be sincere.

In the real world, kindness often feels complicated.

It comes with footnotes.

With timing.

With unspoken expectations you’re expected to understand instinctively.

Sometimes it feels like kindness has conditions you only discover after you’ve already trusted it.

( Podchaser : r7A2pKDNVGEMWh8nScpp )

And that is - Some of us trust stories more than we trust people.

Not because we are naïve.

Not because we are antisocial.

But because stories have never left us the way people have.

Fairytales don’t abandon you.

They change.

They move on.

They forget.

But stories don’t do that.

They wait.

On a shelf.

In a song.

Inside a memory.

They stay exactly where you left them, ready to open again the moment you need them.

That is why we keep coming back.

not because she lacks worth,

but because the world moves forward,

without consulting those

who pause themselves.

I seem to think about the aspect of waiting, a lot lately.

Like waiting is described as this magnificent promise you can make to yourself or to anyone in general.

But what is this notion attached to waiting?

Like I'm sure it is positive but there is an undertone to it.

The one that seems to be lying.