True happiness lies in contentment

After shopping at a retail outlet, my niece and I came out with a baggage of groceries. I had always enjoyed the 10 minute walk from there to my house with broad roads and shady trees on both sides of the road, complementing us with a breeze as they nodded welcoming our arrival. But I suddenly felt someone nudge me; it was my little niece with pleading looks requesting me to hire an auto. I was astonished and sternly chided her saying “Walking is good for health”. She was not convinced but was adamant on her stand. I started advising her like a prophet (my merciless efforts to thrust too many values into the minds of a tiny tot) saying that we should not go behind luxury although an auto is affordable and that she should learn to accustom herself at all situations., be happy for all the blessings GOD has showered upon her, for wonderful parents, grandparents and so on and on..I suddenly stopped to find her give me a puzzled look, I could interpret her mind which said “Why so much of talk for a small auto ride?” This gesture made me reminisce my past. Memories way behind 15-20 years flashed upon that inward eye. I was completely lost in thoughts forgetting my present.

Outing with dad almost every weekend is one of the most memorable and cherishable moments in my lifetime. My dad being a government employee was frequently transferred to different places within short spans of time. The tenure in a place was extendable provided you’re not evasive and unconcealed, ever ready to fill the gunny bags of the superior authorities with …. (hope you guess what I mean here). My dad being an unconventional and principled person, (although these can never be accepted as traits of a government employee ) was being transferred almost every two years or sometimes even every year, irrespective of the fact that he had his family abode at Tuticorin with my mom working as a professor in college. (Oops off the track!!)

  We (my sister and me) would yearn for the weekend, since my dad would reach home by Friday night. Our gala time would start from Saturday noon. We had to take oil bath every Saturday, a ritual we were forced to follow:-). We would have lunch together mom, dad, Subha and me with my granny serving the delicious meal for us. Lot of gossips, fun and frolic, happenings of the entire week, scolding from mom for the petty mistakes committed either by me or Subha all unraveled during the meal. My dad would silently listen to all of them with a beaming smile. Followed by the meal would be a short nap after which we would start getting ready for our venture into the small town Tuticorin.

This venture was usually preceded with tiffin at “Hotel Visaka” near our house. My choice would unassumingly be kesari, (for people who know me well would know kesari is my all time favorite sweet) and my sister would get into research ordering new dishes every week in spite of the fact that there would not be more than 4-5 varieties including MY KESARI. We would quickly finish it off so that we reach the theater early for the movie. In our town there were only a couple of theaters that had A/C boxes(which means the entire theater would not be air-conditioned and only a room with around 20 seats would have the air-conditioned facility which would be almost full or reserved for rich people-talkies kind). So we would ensure we reach early so that we could catch up on the ladies queue to get the tickets quickly. The greatest talent we would boast of until the next movie:-). Movies are events that occur every month or sometimes every quarter of the year. Alternative to movies we would visit temples and beach, the most exotic place since shopping and movies were not affordable frequently.

Saturday night after dinner would be the most awaited moment. The moments that would take us to the heights of amusement, fear, thoughtfulness, rolling on the floor and laughing, psychic screaming or what so ever, guess what!! My dad would narrate a story for us, a new one every week with so much of mimics and expression that would take us to another world (Similar to the one in the movie Anjali when Raghuvaran narrates a story to his kids). I really wonder this unique talent in dad; he was a master in conquering our attention and keeping our minds intact. We would be spell bound by his narration. Exotic memories and I still remember few of those stories. His stories continue until we doze away, sometimes stories end sometimes to be continued the next week. Devoid of mobile phones, ipods, lpads and all modern gadgets the bond was tight. We had lot of time for each other. Less affordability propagated more happiness.

On Sunday, post breakfast we would all be assembled before the television to watch Ramayana or Mahabharatha in Doordarshan with my dad explaining our queries on almost every character during commercial ads. He would have almost every religious fact in his finger tip that any neighbor or relative of ours would refer dad like an encyclopedia for all religious beliefs. Devoid of cable network we had no other choice but to watch the programmes telecasted in Doordarshan. The most important is the Sunday movie for which we would fervently pray that an old black and white movie should never get telecasted.

 Dad loves Philosophy and all his speech would always be tainted with philosophic ideas. Out of 10 sentences he utters one of them would bear a philosophic quote from Socrates. He was so fond of Socrates that he was unable to refrain from quoting him despite mom’s frequent sarcasm about dad’s love for Socrates. Dad in addition to his stories would try to impart moral values every now and then, either in the form of philosophic notes or quoting incidents from his own life. He would advocate his prophecy “True happiness lies in contentment”. We would give him an interrogating look, the looks similar to the one my niece threw upon me. Oops I was shaken by a scream of complaint from my niece to my mom (we had reached near our home by then) that I had kept silent during our walk towards home there by punishing her for being adamant. My mother threw a stern look on me for being rude to the little one.She innocently came back to me with loads of apologies for her disobedient act and was ready to listen to my prophecies .Ripe opportunity for me now; I simply said “True happiness lies in contentment” with a wink. She nodded as though she had understood what I meant. She stopped me before I could move on and said “I understood all what you meant but one doubt, what is contentment chithi(meaning aunt)?”
I burst into laughter and kissed her for the childish innocence :-)

But on thinking deeply, with all these luxuries in place, we’ve always had a vacuum inside. In spite of having everything in excess, entertainment, shopping, travel, food we seem to be dissatisfied and the wish-list gets longer than the tail of hanuman. On digging into the reason behind this vacuum Eureka I discovered (personality traits of my dad to quote Socrates) that it is this excess that had been the root cause for all miseries. On removing excess I was contented, simple, but strong and thought provoking quote by dad. I’m taking conscious efforts to adhere to this as I wish to have true happiness. Thanks to dad for imparting such good values now and forever.