Bhawana Somaaya

Religious books define charity, endurance, meditation, compassion as ways of reducing pain and bringing peace in one’s life. Religion describes peace as happiness…Romantics define passion as happiness…

The fact is happiness cannot be restricted by definitions. It is transitory and changes from person to person and time to time.

As a little girl happiness meant a new frock, shoes, school bag and raincoat and every time I was deprived of these I was unhappy. Today I feel how selfish I was to only think about myself. It did not occur to me even once that my parents did not always purchase me new things because perhaps they could not afford it.

In childhood unknowingly but happiness was expectations.

As I grew older and pursued my dreams I discovered that happiness is freedom. To be able to choose my subject of study, to be able to enroll in the college of my choice, to hang out with my set of friends and pick wardrobe of my liking was exhilarating. It was the first time I was at liberty to spend my time the way I wanted –I could read, write, sing, paint without constant supervision and express my thoughts without fear or authority.

When I passed college and began working, I realized that happiness is accountability. The more my colleagues relied on me, the more confident and cheerful I became. The extra files and follow ups, the innumerable phone calls and late hours at office were worth the effort when my Boss shook my hand in a room full of people and said, ‘Great show’ or when he sent me a mail that ‘Responsibility is assumed never given.’

The coming decades passed in a daze, partly in climbing the ladder of success and partly in balancing professional and personal relationships. The platter of life was filled to the brim and all the experiences had turned me older and wiser. I was changing, was less demanding and more adjusting. It was no more important that things got done my way as long as things got done the right way and on time and more important, every one involved was happy.

It was a phase of lesser arguments and greater harmony and happiness I realized was perhaps submission. And if that’s true then it’s not very different from what religion preaches that happiness is peace.

Does that mean that I have become enlightened and will no more be distracted by temptations of life…? The answer is I’m no saint and have no desire to be one. Despite all my introspection I continue to feel hurt, envy, insecurity and desire power. Position and money bit there is a difference in the sense that I don’t hanker after them. If they come to me I’m happy, if they don’t, I move on. Today I have a realistic estimate of myself and feel satiated because I have resolved the bigger issues of life.

The deeper issues of life like longing for joy in people, places, nature or things on day to day basis I think will continue forever and they should because that’s what makes life interesting. We live because we value relationships. For most of us it is our family and friends that determine our self worth and if one is not performing at work it’s because we are facing troubled relationship at home.

Therefore comes a phase when we all accept that security breeds happiness.

Sometimes adventure brings a sparkle in life, for instance a chance encounter with a stranger on a flight or a book shop can lead to vibrant communication and stimulation is synonymous with joy. For all artistes their creative responses are dependent on the stimulus provided whether it’s a beautiful skyline, an orange sunset, a flight of the pigeons or a dewdrop on a leaf.

The source of joy may vary from artiste to artiste, for the writer happiness radiates from crisp white paper, a well rounded pen, fluorescent felt pens or a simple scented rubber…For the dancer it is a note of music, a piece of choreography, a well mounted stage or the sound of anklets…For the painter it is the smell of colours or a brand new canvass…

Happiness is memories and everything associated with it and that is why even we become older we usually associate our likes and dislikes to those of our parents, we approve of what they approved and disapprove of what they disapproved. A place we visited, a person we love or a favourite dish we had on a happy moment brings a smile to our face just thinking about it…We don’t realise it but we are emotionally attached to our memories and to our worldly possessions.

I confess I love all my beautiful saris and the slightest blemish on them instills immense sorrow. It’s something I’m not proud of and with age I feel I should be able to detach myself from these hazards but inanimate objects even now have the power to breed immense joy for me…I confess I’m psychologically attached to all my ornaments and find settling my cupboards extremely therapeutic. I’m always excited to watch a movie or a play because it means learning something new.

In sober moods it is always the familiar that makes me happy- for instance ‘beet’ and ‘tomatoes’ among vegetables cheer me up because I love colour red smiling at me from my plate. In the house I love white flowers particularly jasmine because its fragrance lifts my spirit. I love the smell of camphor, incense and aromatic oils even though I know the joy I obtain from the fragrance is temporary.

The lasting happiness emanates from books, from observations, from introspection. On a day to day basis happiness is to be in the company of friends I like, to work at my own pace, to speak my mind without mincing my word. To sleep and wake up when I desire and relish my two cups of tea in my favourite chair watching the birds on my window sill, to dress by the dictates of the heart not fashion or protocol. Today, happiness is my simple routine of reading newspapers, doing exercise and punching for long hours undisturbed on the computer.

Today happiness is comfort.

There is a possibility that the connotation may change tomorrow. There is a possibility that I may change tomorrow but one thing is for sure, no matter how old all of us get and no matter what goals we seek in our individual professions, all of us will forever and forever pursue happiness.

It is perhaps the most simple and therefore the most difficult ingredient of life.

Bhawana Somaaya
Author and editor
www.bhawanasomaaya.com

Almost everybody turns nostalgic when they talk about their childhood. They describe the days gone by in glorious terms, filled with innocence and abandon. I disagree. I believe that people who tend to romanticize the past are people who are unable to deal with the present.

I can deal with my present and I have no hesitation to admit that childhood for me was far from the carnival it is made out to be. And thank God I’m not alone in this thought process. Pt. Ram Shastri, F.Scot Fitzgerald, Javed Akhtar, Sant Gyaneshwar have written extensively about their early anguished days. In fact it is believed that most creative people have a troubled past because of which they transform into artistes.

We have been reared to believe that childhood is blissful while in reality childhood is an extremely turbulent, lonely and often frightening phase of our life. It is a phase when you have too many questions and almost no answers.

Psychiatrists say that if adults peeped into the hearts and minds of their children they will never recognize themselves. Hindi films portray the young hero and heroine running into forests and plucking jamuns from a tree. In reality the sepia images are far from lyrical.

On many occasions I have tried to recreate my past in to postcards but unlike our films the images get blurred and dissolve. When I concentrate harder, incomplete visuals fall like dew-drops on my blank canvass and I weave my own story, part fact and part perspective.

I recall hazy images…

…A two year-old huddled inside a cradle placed in the centre of the room often filled with guests and conversations. Young as I am, I understand that getting out of my space will be an invasion into the adult world. So I stay inside without stirring sometimes for hours…Only once in a while when the guests overstay and I’m uncomfortable I call out to my mother and ask, “Ma have the guests left..?” The guests are amused by my shyness and the family almost proud of my self control. “It is extra-ordinary to depict such restraint at such a tender age” they say.

It is the beginning and how strange that nobody pauses to ponder what goes on in a child’s head…Why I behave the way I do..? Can it be because most of the time adults are too busy and don’t pay adequate attention to children or perhaps they don’t sense anything amiss in their surrounding..?

If I jog my memory further I recall a rope swing tied to the balcony door of our old home facing a crowded street. Every evening I’m put on this swing and spend my time watching the hawkers and the people pass by. At dusk when my elder brother returns home after a tired day’s work he gently pushes my saddle and says to mother, “She sits there looking out of the window day after day…wonder what she thinks.”

We assume most of the time that children are day-dreaming but my brother had given thought to my silences and he was right. I was thinking. Day after day I worried about the vendors on the street… I worried about how they would carry their belongings and find their way home… Now when I think of it I feel that children absorb more than we credit them. It is just that they are not equipped to express themselves and thank God for if they did they would frighten their parents..!

Today as I sit at my desk to write this article many montages play in my mind…

I remember my first visit to a Railway Station accompanied by my father. He bought our tickets at a modest window and then led me through a crowded passage to a tall bridge. It was a mighty iron bridge with circular design on the steps. I refused to climb the bridge for I feared slipping down from the little holes. My father was worried. He pushed three fingers inside the circular design and demonstrated why I can never fall down from the steps. “You can only fall if the bridge collapses…” he explained.

I remembered that and after that I prayed every night that the bridge must never collapse. One day, I forgot to pray. I was certain that the bridge had collapsed! In the morning I rushed to the balcony and was surprised to find the bridge in place. I felt betrayed. Had I wasted my precious time in worrying about an unworthy cause? My mind was restless with questions but there was nobody to provide me the answers.

I assumed I would resolve all my conflicts when I attended school but those were hectic days burdened with accountability. The school bag, the rain coat, the water bottle…One had to remember to wear the canvass shoes for the PT class, the salwar and ghungroos for the dance class, the Guide uniform for the extra curricular activities…Every day the time-table had to be checked, the home-work completed, uniform ironed and shoes polished.

There was too much to learn in too little time…How to walk in the rain and balance in the floods, how to catch the bus on time and solve the Algebra sum, how to wash the lunch box and wrap it in the plastic bag, how to cover the books and put the labels, how to remember the lessons, recite poetry and make presentation on the annual day.

It was a turbulent phase filled with self doubt and as time went by the anxieties only multiplied. The pressure for better grades, the pain of puberty, the rivalry in the class room, the embarrassment of a new pimple, the changing body language and the gaze around you. There was too much to cope and too little support.
Childhood was a lonely world…

Then one day, I still remember clearly, the family was travelling to a relative’s home by the BEST bus. As children we were trained to grab an empty seat to prevent from falling down in a moving vehicle. So that day like every time I charged towards an empty seat and was about to plonk when my older sibling pulled me up and seated my mother instead. I was confused and when we got off at our destination immediately asked her about it. “Because” she explained, “You are a big girl now and Mother has turned old. It is her turn to be protected by us.”

I wasn’t sure if I had heard it right but when I looked up, the skyline appeared a different colour. My sister’s words reverberated in my ears and in days to come there was ample proof of it. Anupam Kher once said in my interview that when we grow old it is usually others who make us aware of it. How true because a few days later for the first time Father sought my opinion on purchasing a new dinning table…Suddenly the older girls in the building did not stop whispering when I joined them…Suddenly I stopped enjoying being with my younger cousins.

Finally, the umbilical chord with childhood was broken. Finally, I had my passport to adulthood. Finally, I was free to inhale and exhale, to make my choices and pursue my vision without seeking permission. I was free to make judgements, follow my path and speak my mind without interference. I was free to live my life and make mistakes, to regret or rejoice, to exercise caution or be reckless.

Unlike school and college, life as an adult was a ride without trappings. It provided all the answers I had been looking for. Now I shopped my own clothes, purchased my jewellery, decided the menu and also my investments. There were hardly any doors I didn’t know how to open or conflicts I didn’t know how to resolve. I knew how to win friends and influence people. I knew how to negotiate a better deal or restore faith when relationships soured.

As time went by I felt I was in control of my life. I was no more weighed down by domestic or moral dilemmas. There were frequent blockages but I accepted them as part of destiny.

I never missed my childhood and never craved for those days to return. Perhaps people who do are people who fear looking ahead. They fear getting old. I don’t because the older I get the wiser I turn. Yes there are a few grey strands in my hair today and my reflexes are slower too but I’m less anxious today than I was as a child.

According to me the real picnic begins now. If MFHussain…Dev Anand…Lata Mangeshkar and Amitabh Bachchan can lead a wholesome life at 66 and beyond so can all of us.
It is time we stop glorifying flashback scenes where the young hero and heroine ran into dense forest.Who cares for the sepia tones. I want to lead my life in rainbow colours complete with Dolby sound. I don’t want to look back…Only forward.

Bhawana Somaaya(Critic, Columnist, Author)
Web-www.bhawanasomaaya.com
Email-contact@bhawanasomaaya.com