Project Happiness

Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in our apartment's complex lasted for a week. The days passed by swiftly, too soon for my liking and comfort.  The seven days went by in music, devotional songs, preparing meal offerings for Bappa, spending evenings at the compound with neighbors, exchanging news, attending the daily pooja and eating Prasad together with everyone. There were also games for the kids and usually everyone stayed at the compound well until 10 pm.  It was an amazing time.  But what I realised the day after Ganesha's Visarjan was that, for the whole seven days, I had spent very less time on the social media. There was no inclination to catch up with the updates posted by my SM friends. There was no need to check and comment on every post I came across on FB or Instagram. In fact, I didn't open FB at all on some days, something that will come off as shocking on weekdays when I usually resort to the SM for moral support and reality breaks.  And this one week spe...

Today has been another hectic day with the rushed morning, waking up the kid for the umpteenth time only to hear 'two more minutes!' from him, hurriedly preparing breakfast and sending off the kid to the school. As usual, I dropped off his lunch to his school at 11. The morning was dark and gloomy with an overcast sky and the promise of rains. As I reached home after delivering the lunch, I took the first relaxed breath of the day. I live for this pocket window - this moment, when all the chores of the morning are done and I finally get time to do what I love to do, which mostly is reading. Since I am writing about happiness now-a-days, it struck me that this moment could be considered as a happy moment in my day. It also brought in a realization, that there are many such tiny and happy moments in my days. That hour of silence and solitude early in the morning when I take my tea and play some devotional songs on the TV. When the first bird-song breaks out from the tree beside o...

Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in our apartment's complex ended on Sunday. It was an unforgettable week of jubilance, celebration, devotion and community gathering.  The days passed by swiftly, too swiftly for my liking. For these seven days, I lived a different life, a life where the usual worries and anxieties that come with the package of adulthood, took a back seat. In fact, they backed away so much that I forgot them completely. For a short while, the illusion of bliss and happiness kept me floating.  But reality returned (as it always does) and it returned hard.  Monday, which in itself, needs therapy.  Exams of the kid. Morning rush and mayhem. All the health concerns that re-emerged with the visarjan of Ganpati Bappa.  This happens every year, every time I take a short break from daily routine. When I go on a trip, when guests and loved ones come over to stay at my home briefly, when I go for an outing - all these moments, reality took a break and I live...

  There is a book written by Gretchen Rubin titled The Happiness Project (which may or may not have influenced my quest’s name. Please pretend as if I came up with the name on my own!) One of the points mentioned by the author fascinated me. She says – If you have only one happiness commandment, make sure it is - Be Gretchen. In other words, she tells us to be ourselves. Always and unfailingly. Born a millennial and adulting into a new millennium, I find myself wildly oscillating between two worlds – the one where I grew up, where it was essential to please the society, to follow ‘rules’ and to be what everyone expected you to be, and the other world where I see people living the best versions of themselves without bowing to the expectations of the society. Frankly, the first world beckons me more, even today. But the other world – how tempting it is! For a long time, I thought I would be happiest if I stayed in the good books of people. If I stayed low and invisible, at the ...

  I was both blessed and cursed to get the opportunity to work in Customer Relations Department. Blessed because I got the chance to deal with different kinds of temperaments and could learn a lot about handling people. Cursed because I got the chance to deal with different kinds of temperaments, many of them vicious in their approach. My job profile included attending to customers’ queries through emails, letters (yep, I belong to THAT generation!) and the worst of all – phone calls. While the emails and letters weren’t particularly difficult to handle, phone calls were a whole another level of challenging and often turned a good day into the worst one. Usually, I loved going to office. It was situated in Colaba which is one of my favourite places in Mumbai. I would walk from CSTM station to Colaba, enjoying the sights of books being sold on the pavement and the old heritage aura of Mumbai. I would be in a good mood while starting my day in the office. But many days it w...

  Most of my life I have been convincing others (and myself) that I am a seeker of contentment and not of happiness. I have always believed that happiness doesn't come alone and is followed by its counterpart grief. With the noble intention of not wanting either, I have leaned towards contentment, hoping that it will make my days easier. Spoiler alert - it didn't.  I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realised that all wasn't fine at my end. But I gradually started noticing that I wake up almost every day feeling as if the weight of the entire world is on my shoulders. I treat every task as a routine to be followed rigidly, and while the routine helped me to stay grounded, it is now becoming a measure of how well my day was, something that I never intended for it to become. I feel myself resisting internally to every task and every chore. The things that used to excite me no longer serve their purpose.  But I think what tipped me over the edge was the collection of...