Second time is steady – The Hindu

The second time is not about discovering something new, but about settling into it.
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The first time is this unfiltered sense of exhilaration. It is filled with breathlessness and anticipation as we stand on the precipice of something new, wondering if we will ever feel the same way again?

The first time I strolled through Udaipur, it was like stepping into a dream: a city that hovered between the lake and the sky, afloat on its own reflection, its palaces flickering in the water like mirages, its damp cobbled lanes whispering tales from antiquity. It was a city that was at once too pristine, too still and too beautiful to be real.

Jaipur, too, was picture perfect. Its bazaars thronged with life as the city blushed under the sun: ochre at dawn, coral by noon, and a deep velvet rose in the evening glow.

But the second time was different. The second time, I was not discovering these places, I was remembering them. The second time, I did not chase wonder; I settled into it. I no longer looked at the city with wide eyes, I closed them, and I remembered: where to find the best chai, when the lake turns into melted gold and where the city’s hush is most beautiful.

Indeed, the second time is not about discovering something new, but about settling into it.

And isn’t this true of everything?

The second time, falling in love is quieter. The first arrives like an ambush — uncontained, electric, convinced it is the only thing that will ever feel this way. But the second does not demand to be believed — it asks to be understood. It lingers in the small spaces, in steady knowing, in the ease of two people learning how to stay.

The same is true of anything we return to. The first time writing a novel is an act of faith, chasing an idea without knowing where it will lead. The second time, we know the shape of the process, the patience it requires, the places we will get lost. The first time travelling alone is an act of defiance, proof that you can survive the unknown. The second time, you move —through the world not as a stranger, but as someone who belongs.

Maybe that is why I return. Not for the thrill of the first, but for the depth of the second. The second time is not lesser — it is simply softer, steadier, more certain. It is not about being swept away — it is about choosing to stay.

But if the first time is discovery, and the second is understanding, then the third is something else entirely.

The third time is ease. It is walking through a city without reaching for the map, ordering without hesitation, knowing not just where to go but where to linger. It is when love stops being a question and becomes something certain. The moment when the unfamiliar becomes ours.

Maybe that’s why they call it third time lucky. Not because the first two were wrong, but because by the third, we are finally ready to get it right.

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