Let's Just Simply Be Happy

"Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires."
-  Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching 

Yeah that's precisely what dawned upon me just when i had decided to be thoughtless and aimless and simply roam around. But can we really be that. Fact of the matter being voices are going on and we are inwardly talking or if not talking then listening to our own thoughts. But that about keeping it simple but sweet came later...after a few moments of inward talking.
This moment when i saw the children sitting in groups in anticipation of the Bhel Puri as the teachers got busy distributing those small paper plates, the thought that first erupted as a whisper was '' Choti choti khusiyan". Maybe the kids were young primary ones and the scene was that of the school picnic. i was gripped with nostalgia. Loved and connected with the sight of that little girl polishing the tangy masala ( spices) off the plate...probably she got her share first.
Oh it was not so far away down that memory lane when i used to do just the same. When i too more than the real Bhel Puri itself loved licking the tangy spicy sweet and sour left over wet spices off the dried leaf plate sometimes and even newspapers other times ...in fact i still do it in movie theaters in the dark. Lick those dry granules of spices left over at the bottom of those snack pouches with my fingers perfectly sure that nobody is watching.
And i hope nobody has.... seen me lick...making pinching like fingers and going right to the bottom of the popcorn carton... picking those bits and plopping them into the mouth rolling the lips to suck and lick with relish but mind you with dexterity enough to keep the rest of the hands clean...hahahahaha....

Don't know what made me call Happiness ' Choti' because Happiness is a feeling and whether there is any yardstick at all to measure it after all ... maybe it's become our habit to measure everything...can't tell but yeah it's also become the trend these days to call Happiness as thus. Big Happiness or Small Happiness. In common parlance i also remember saying 'very happy'  but is there any BIG happiness or SMALL happiness i am positive now there ISN'T any such. i just know one experience for sure for after having chased this and been there bought that, this simple truth SMALL THINGS BOOST HAPPINESS BIG TIME!!!.
Like licking the tangy spices while watching any movie in a dark theater or like these small kids having a picnic today with Bhelpuri with a bit of sunshine in the winter and friends.

What i really mean is simplicity and the simple pleasures of life. Maybe my thought initially tried to battle it out that true Happiness cannot be compared or measured .
i consider myself blessed and fortunate for i have indulged into many of such when i was growing up. But my heart goes out to all those who are as busy as the machines that work non-stop or maybe allowed a brief spaced out time for cooling the system. i am aware of one such paid holiday of 14 days in which these human machines then make a copy cat mission for some BIG HAPPINESS in some exotic expensive locale only to come back in a haste to their messy apartments just to dump their travel luggage and get back to the same hum drum of their motor routine working life. Wait desperately for the weekend to do the pending laundry and stuff and catch up on that sleep that they long for from which they wish don't have to get up remembering of the errands still to be done before maniac Monday hits them with a nasty jab on the chin shin bun ...whatever.
i guess that's why the urgent adrenaline rush these days for a ' Happy Weekend' instead of ' A Happy Week' on Mondays.
Got reminded of what Pearl S Buck said,

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.”

i sincerely wish and hope that something changes. Just having a Happy Street on a Happy Sunday will it suffice i wonder. But then again i feel something is better than having nothing. So it feels good that this need was felt and some cities are incorporating this concept. But maybe we need to pitch in too. We have to figure out a way through which we can slow down for a bit so that we can really feel how big or small our happiness has been. Real ly.

Want also to share this poem which echoes with Pearl S Buck only thing that listening to it in one's mother tongue i could fathom the meaning of Happiness in it like how i did when i saw the children and the teachers enjoying their picnic with not much but yet with everything that one could possibly need. Tasty Bhelpuri, friends. a nice natural but clutter free place to sit and a bit of sunshine... everywhere.



i have requested for an English translation from the composer. Once it's done will post it here. Initially i got it as a whatts app message. i had saved it all along to search for it on You tube. Imagine getting an audio clip with such nice voice modulation as a forward and nothing to fall back on. It is traumatic for a person like me. But thanks to technology a few key words in Hindi and i found Mr Madhur Chadha.
And since i did get his composition rendered so brilliantly after some effort it took from me and because it is so appropriate for my blog i want to share it with all those who haven't yet received it...the fortunate blessed souls who are not yet the victims of another malaise that has hit us hard chin shin bun whatever... Yeah WHATTS APP
Just another virtual world of communication driving people nuts and perhaps hastening more of this declining trend of real communication. Which again i would assert was one simple and happy means of communication in which we could see OR feel.
That which emojees can FAKE but can't make us feel.

Hope u get the drift...my drift and also of The STORY OF SMALL HAPPINESS...yeah transliteration of KISSA CHOTI KHUSHI KA...