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.

A Love Note (with card-type Images) for my Countless Valentines

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I love your eyes...

No other lines in history have been flogged as the ones above with almost everyone trying to fit it to their standards especially on V Day.

Thank God for the roses and violets & all the beautiful things around me.

Is love red and pink with dashes of maroon and off white thrown in for good measure? When juxtapositioned against the story of St Valentine of the Roman empire, one can grudgingly imagine why the color of Valentine's Day is red! Blood, even that of a martyred saint is, after all RED.

Red apart, I can never fathom the others signages and symbols of the day. This is perhaps because when we were growing up, it was never a big deal. Very few people knew about it then and most of our parents were not even aware leave alone celebrate an occasion like this.

I remember clearly the first time a guy had given me a Valentine's Day card - I had laughed at his face. The big pink and red card said, "Will you be my Valentine?" Needless to say, that since it was a more chivalrous time and since none of us understood the nuances of the question too well, he never bothered me ever again and I was never bothered by his not bothering either.

As we grew and went to college, Valentine's Day became a rage. There were serpentine queues outside the card and gift shops. The show of love often melted into a shower of tears by the end of the day making us change seats constantly to give 'lovers' their privacy. No one seemed to be in control of their emotions once the card got to them - it was either instant tears of love or hate (depending on who was giving the card).

Love and thanks to friends and family for being one and the same.

As a firm believer in love these days I see it everyday and everywhere. That reconciles me to the fact that I was not foolish to laugh at the very first V Day card that was presented to me. Because I did not accept it, I floundered on the path to getting here where I appreciate all aspects of love. However, my path to love and its course as promised by the Bard (bless the man), "...never did run smooth..."

I was talking to a dear friend recently and she was moaning the fact that how one cannot count on love any more. I simply told her, 'wouldn't it be boring if she had the same old, same old all the time?' That made her laugh though her tears.

Love is not contained to one day nor to one relationship and certainly does not care about 'a' person or a 'few' people. Love is hiding everywhere. In the mornings it greets us through the curtains with the warmth of a Sunrise and the hugs of our family. It touches our heart through the lovely food someone shares with us and in a smile of satisfaction when you listen patiently to someone's cribs or they yours because your paths have crossed. Love seeps into me through music and cinema, through art and books. It makes me feels humble when someone else roots for me and has more belief in me than I do in myself and I seem to be meeting such people all the time.

Thanks for Music, Beatles, Tea, Love Notes & Messages that read like Books.

Love is lovely, it helps you grow as a human being and makes you bolder, wiser, more of a risk-taker and less of a conventional. You just need to open your heart to receive it or should I say be wise to its ways?

I have lovely people around me. I love the work I do. I love the fact that I am passionate about my hobbies and dream of them and have massive numbers of people who indulge me in my pursuit of my hobbies. I am happy that I have a family that is more friends than a bunch of relations. I thank love for guiding my hands and letting me make friends with my colleagues and neighbors and with strangers in public places and on social networking sites. I thank love for making me enjoy the cities I spent my life in and for all the warm vibes I get from them. The list is endless, like an Oscar thank you speech.

At the end of all the thank yous that could fill pages I come back and ask, "why only one day to love and thank one person for love?"

I very big hug and a sloppy 'mwwwah' to all of you everyday and for all the times - good and bad!

Enjoy life, share it with everyone and endless thanks for sharing it with me. Oh and have plenty of chocolates! It's Valentine's Day after all. :)