I Hold my Key to Happiness

There are days when everything feels dull. Even rain fails to raise your spirit and mile long traffic jams make resistance futile even for the most resilient among us.

By afternoon you are angst-ridden, irritated and wondering, why did you even get out of the bed in the morning? 

Often, such questions defy answers - especially if it is a Monday like today! 

So, I try going existential and ask myself questions like, 'Can a whole life be lived in a single Monday? Or Can one evening of your life be the most important and most exciting of your life?

The answer I feel is, yes.

These moments that pass us by at breakneck speed are ours to either fill with happiness and laughter so that they become framed in our memories as happy events.

Why else would I hold on to a memory from age three, where my ma after dressing me in a yellow T shirt with a couple of dancing foxes embossed on it and dousing me in baby talc, gives me a hug calling me "shonamoni"?

Or when at age 5 I had to clean up all the toys after my toddling sister who declared very grandly, "I know how to play, but not how to clean up." I was not angry. Mildly irritated but, immensely tickled by her attitude. She had just learnt to speak.

   

I keep getting these flashes from far away summer vacations when we had stolen sweets from my grandmom's larder and hidden them in the coal cellar. We were of course caught red handed eating the exposed sweets and told, 'now you have eaten what all the cockroaches and bacteria has already tasted..." We thought, we were going to die!

I also remember how someone from Delhi upon looking at the Juhu sea for the first time from the double Decker bus in Bombay exclaimed, "Look. I never knew there was a desert in Bombay!"

I had looked around wondering, "did anyone else in here hear what was just said?"

Life is nothing but memories. I firmly believe that they should be happy rather than sad.

I have always taken a mental broom and cleaned out bad memories from my mind. It is easy, just clean up and throw inside a mental strong box and lock it up.

Keep the key safe. Ensure that only you should be able to open it and  no one else.

And coming back to Mondays, I have a similar strong box of happy moments where I have lived an entire short life. I just open the box and let it rain happy memories when stuck in a jam, facing a hard-to-please client or almost dozing off in a boring meeting or something much worse. Happy memories and happy times make you feel life's easy.

Also, when you look up in a bad situation and smile at another miserable soul, you make that person happy as well.

I try making happy memories in even the worst of times. I keep one eye out for that silver lining that most of us miss because we are busy being miserable. You never know when you'll need to open this treasure chest and cheer yourself up because nothing seems to be going your way at all. So, keep this key handy.

It is easy to do. Just smile and look around and everything will change around you. You are free to look away from the reasons that are causing you heartburn, ignore them even. After all, it is your life. You need to call the shots not anyone else.

Story of a Woman Driving on Delhi Roads at Peak Hours

Some days I wonder sitting in the crawling Delhi traffic that I'll die of boredom and everyone around will just honk and curse me because the car would be immobile once the light turns green. It kind of tickles my funny bone thinking, all the misogynists on the road would simply point finger at my smiling corpse and say, "a woman has no road sense. Look at this one, died right in the middle of a traffic jam making things worse!"
Macabre is all that stirs-up humor on the humid, wet and crowded roads these days. The rage on the road is seen to be believed. Women don't stand a chance.
If rain falls (even if it is a five minute squall) the vehicles start rushing to get into others' paths and looking out for women drivers like me to cut into. It is too scary not knowing which way to look - straight ahead or on both the sides. One never knows which car, on either side, decides suddenly to veer and charge straight at mine.
As a woman I feel the men on the road who often cast disdainful looks at my jalopy and me, think I have no right to be there. Woman are best locked in the kitchen. Right?
Often I see someone jumping into my way with complete disregard to my right to road/passage. I say this also because I do not often see men doing this to each other unless it is a lowly auto rickshaw they are running off the road.
Earlier, I used to shout and curse, but these days I just concentrate on survival. This stand I took especially after two different episodes. In the first, a guy came lunging at me on the wrong side from the opposite direction and started flashing his light at my face. It was broad daylight. I had my sister sitting next to me and this was a crowded market place with many other cars behind me. When I glared at this fine specimen of male testosterone he bared his fangs at me and asked me to "Fuck off!"
Needless to say, I was taken aback and wanted to shout back at him but, before I could react, he charged with his expensive Skoda and zoomed at me calling me names that everyone on the road could lip read and braked only at the last moment when I was sure that both I and my sister were sure to end up in the nearby hospital.
If that was not enough, he honked and revved the engine and continued calling me what is the common expression to describe a female dog before taking a sudden right to move on with a noise strong enough to wake up the dead.
I was left nonplussed and embarrassed that day and also thankful to be alive. The guy was mad enough to ram and kill both of us. He, like most others, know that no matter who is at fault, the blame can easily be shifted to the woman even if she has lost her life.
The other incident happened a few days back at night on my way back from work. The drive is long and by the time I reach home I have driven 30 km in the peak hours. No wonder that the noise of unnecessary honks irritate and anger me.
That day, there was this car that came out of nowhere and wedged itself right behind me on a two-lane narrow arterial road and started honking incessantly. (I don't know why the traffic rules are not changed to 'challan' (write a ticket) any vehicle that uses a horn beyond a certain decibel level?) So, this guy keeps honking till my head is ready to explode and I have no idea why. So, I did something I've never done before, I rolled down the window and showed this mad man my middle finger because he's an asshole.
I thought that the sight of the offending Index would embarrass him and shut up the racket, but, I was so wrong!
This fellow took it as an offense and just put his hand on the horn and held while flashing the headlights of his Swift Desire at my tired eyes. I was besides myself with impotent anger when he came as near as he could and then, as I faltered and slowed down because I was zapped by the ugly noise and the flashing light, he overtook me, missing my car by a hair's breath, zoomed ahead and braked suddenly. I braked too. Many behind me too stood on their brakes to save the car ahead.
I thought he was going to get out and smash my car when, he softly rolled down his windows and pulled out a middle finger at me. While I was struggling to make up my mind whether he was a manic or a cheapo, he pushed out his ugly head and called me some choicest names and then vroomed off to the next red light where I saw him idling with a smirk on his face when I reached the spot in another two minutes.
He looked at me and I just could not resist myself - made a puking gesture that he saw. I don't know what his next move would have been because the light changed and I turned left to enter my locality while he buzzed-off on the straight road.