If you could relive one year of your life, which one would it be?

That’s a tough one.

On second thoughts, is it all that tough?

Not really.

Not for me, anyway. I have always maintained—and still do—that I am not the kind who wants to go back in time ever.

I don’t agree with the sentiment of the Kishore Kumar song, ‘Koi Lauta De Mere Beete Huye Din’ (Someone please give me back the days that are gone). Please don’t. Those days have been lived, are done and dusted with. I am perfectly okay that they are behind me now, somewhere where I cannot reach them.

Then there’s the hot favourite song of those who want to relive their childhood. The Jagjit Singh ghazal, ‘Kagaz Ki Kashti’ (paper boat), is their anthem. The first stanza—translated—goes something like this:

‘Take this wealth, take this fame, even
snatch my youth from me.
But return to me the monsoon of my childhood,
that paper boat, that rain water.’

Don’t get me wrong. I love the ghazals of Jagjit Singh. I adore this song as well. But the sentiment of the song itself is not for me.

The past is past. Done and dusted.

I am more about the present, and the future. Living what’s left of my life as best as I can, with dignity and joy, takes precedence over sighing about the past and wanting to relive it.

In fact, my personal view is that people should stop obsessing over the past. Live in the moment. Do something that makes tomorrow better in all possible ways, for you and for everyone else.

So yeah. I am the wrong person to be answering this prompt. But I did it anyway.

Now… If you were to say I could go back and change things… Well. That’s a different proposition altogether. In that case, count me in. I might go back to the time dinosaurs were roaming the Earth and stop their extinction. But of course that was not during my life, so becomes null and void as far as the question is concerned. More’s the pity.

©️ Shail Mohan 2026