In that moment, it was just me and the wall.

As I write this piece, I'm sitting in my hotel room waiting for the taxi that will take me away from Prague back to Abu Dhabi. In these few minutes I want to try and recall something about my Europe trip that I'm scared will fade away but want to keep with me forever. Yesterday evening we went to the Lennon Wall in Mala Strana to write something on it. We couldn't find a pen, so I asked a cafe, whose cashier sent me hunting for one down in a place called Beer Shop — which apparently sells everything from beer to tissue paper. Turns out it was called Bio Market. After going the wrong way for half an hour, we found it. One of the staff there lent us his marker pen for 15 minutes, and off we went to the Lennon Wall.

I tried hard to think about what to write on my way there. I contemplated writing Kids, Gauraang was here, and sending my children on a quest 20 years later to find these words. Finally, when I stood in front of the wall with the pen in my hand, I simply wrote, without thinking:

Be brave, Be honest, Be beautiful.

In that moment, it was just me and this wall, where strangers from all over the world and across time had written messages. I was acutely aware of all the colours in the wall. A few meters away, a man played the guitar and sang in a sweet voice. As I wrote those words, warm tears started flowing down my cheeks. With every pen stroke I was etching some sign, some trace that symbolised that I was here, I had felt and thought and seen and existed. Even if the wall is painted over, those molecules and residues of ink will still remain somewhere, long after I'm gone. I closed my eyes and knelt in front of the Lennon wall. I could feel my heartbeat and my breath getting constricted in my chest. It was just me, the wall and that bittersweet guitar melody. I close my eyes right now and I am almost back in that moment.

Everything on this trip had led up to that moment: booking the wrong hotel, the passive aggressive discussions, the hours of research to find out about opening hours and walking routes, the fear before boarding the plane to Prague and leaving behind the known, wandering through the cold, lashing rain of Dresden to find Kunsthofpassage, having burgers in a restaurant owned by a graceful Pakistani-German man, poring over Google Maps, listening to the Kreuzchorvesper in a church in Dresden and singing a German prayer which I did not know but still understood. Admiring the fashion sense and silent grace of old Viennese couples, seeing the Charles Bridge in Prague for the first time, peering into the eye sockets of skulls at Kutna Hora, passing through cottages with chimneys in the middle of enchanted forests; getting into NYU Abu Dhabi, the college application process, the silent, secret struggles of high school, the barriers that I was finally starting to break down; the pain, the fear, the shame, the hope, the desire, the love — everything culminated in these few seconds. As I grew conscious of my very existence, time slowed down and almost stood still for me. I placed a coin in front of the guitarist and whispered, "You made me cry." He nodded, and mouthed, "Thank you."

I couldn't stop weeping as we walked back to Charles Bridge to return to our hotel — not out of happiness or sadness, but of something deep, indescribable, mysterious and beyond labels or words. I felt like I had discovered and realised my own mortality, and yet had never felt so alive.

Prague is about moments. I remember the statues of age-old saints peering down at me from the roofs of buildings, from the bridge, from hidden, shaded emerald nooks. They watch over this city, frozen in a single pose and expression, though they are long gone and nobody remembers who they really were. I imagined the countless 19-year-olds walking down these very same cobbled pathways and over the Charles Bridge. I thought of a painting I saw at Petrin Hill of students fighting a battle against the Swedes on this very same bridge. I can never know what they felt and thought and who they were. But I still felt their presence, their moments, all around me.

At the gate of the Charles Bridge, I saw a woman kneeling and begging for coins. But unlike the others she was not trying very hard. It was almost like she was ashamed to be in this situation — she was crying, copiously and continuously. I placed every single coin in my wallet in her Starbucks cup, the tears wet on my cheeks, knowing I couldn't come close to even imagining what she was feeling or what her story was. She whispered, "Thank you," as people continued to walk by. I think it was her first day on the streets, begging from the people whose ranks she perhaps once belonged to. She will be there tomorrow. This is life.

At the Lennon Wall, I realised that I too am going to die someday, and the world will remember me for some time hopefully, but I shall also fade away into the obscurity of history. Time does not stand still. But that briefness is what makes life so precious. I realised that life is about moments. It's not just about where you want to be or where you think that you should think you want to be. Life is where you are. This point of time. This instant. There — it's already gone. It will never come back again. But even if you forget it, it is still a part of your existence. Isn't that beautiful?

I still don't know how much this trip has changed me, or how much of what I've just written I'm going to continue to believe in. I have a funny way of having revelations and then going back on my word despite knowing that I'm doing so. But I believe that those precious seconds are some of the immortal and sacred moments that this city is built on.