Two of the world's most populous nations, long shadowed by border disputes and mutual suspicion, are choosing once again to meet at the table rather than the frontier. At the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi will hold their third consecutive annual meeting — a quiet but consequential rhythm that diplomats and scholars read as a deliberate commitment to coexistence. The machinery of normalization, from restored flight routes to resumed border trade, suggests that both nations have decided the cost of estrangement outweighs the comfort of grievance.