LITTLE PLEASURES

I was in an extremely bad mood. As I entered home after a bad day in the office, I found the kids fighting; and acting as an arbitrator in their fight was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. While I was fuming at my kids, the housemaid came with intimation for two days leave which acted as a catalyst to my anger. Since the maids enjoy certain privileges, and cannot be scolded, I started finding faults with my children and husband to give vent to my anger.  When I returned to my room I was considering myself as the most dejected soul and the most stressed person on earth. To show everyone that I was not in a mood to talk, I picked up the magazine section of a newspaper, in which an article about happiness caught my attention. It said that one should try to derive pleasures from little things in life. So how can one get little pleasures in day to day life? I started to recall the instances that give me pleasure. Here is the compilation of few such moments, which have given me little pleasures in the past (and continue to do so, whenever they reoccur):

1.     In a Parent Teacher meeting at my son’s school, we (my husband and I) were sitting quietly, vowing not to speak anything for fear of opening Pandora’s box (of his complaints as always) , feeling like a prisoner waiting for the award of (death) sentence. But to our surprise, when we asked guiltily to his teacher about his performance, she replied,” Oh! He is a very bright boy! I agree, he is very naughty and talkative, but all the children are naughty at this age!” we thanked her enthusiastically and left before she could change her opinion.  Coming out, we prayed that such good sense prevail on all the teachers so that parents could return from PTM without losing their self-esteem!

2.     Upon entering the kids’ room, I found out that both the kids were quietly doing their homework. I could not believe my eyes! This means no scolding at them, no arguments- counter arguments! Wow! How much time did I have at my disposal! Lucky me!

3.     One fine morning, after snoozing the alarm three four times, I was trying to open my eyes to get up for morning walk, when my husband went out in the balcony and happily announced,” It’s raining!” I felt like “man me laddoo foota! Such pleasant news in the morning! I could sleep without a sense of guilt. After all, I was ready to get up for morning walk; it was the God of rains who prevented me from walk!

4.     On the same rainy day, when I had lost all the hopes of arrival of my maid, no sooner had I stepped into the kitchen, than I heard the bell ring! The sound of doorbell had never sounded so melodious! Instead of scolding her for late arrival, I felt like hugging her!

5.     I telephoned my tailor to remind him to stitch my suits in time, practising in my mind counter arguments for the reasons he might give for the delay like, marriage in his family, kareegars chhuti par hain ( workers on leave) etc. but to my surprise, he said,” suit ban gaye hain jee, aap le lo kisi bhi time! (Your suits are ready; you can pick up any time!) Was I dreaming?

6.     While getting ready for an outing, when I told my son to go and fetch his clothes himself, to my surprise he returned with his clothes!( normally he stands against his wardrobe not being able to spot the clearly visible clothes and keeps on calling me)

7.     In a departmental store, the lady standing ahead of me in the queue who seemed to have purchased the whole store, suddenly realized that she could  have done with some more  shopping and left the queue saving at least 15 minutes of my waiting time. I felt so lucky!  

8.     My weighing scale, which seems to have taken a vow to move only in upward direction and never move below a certain reading, suddenly made me happy by showing a reading below my threshold weight! So what if it was due to the fever I had the previous day which didn’t let me eat anything? After all, it gave me the satisfaction of reducing some weight!

Recalling all these incidences, I realized that life is not that bad. After all, at times I too have my moments of happiness. So friends! I hope that rather than dismissing my happy moments as silly, you would add yours to the list and share with me!