Hail Happiness

You are here: Home » Supplements » Sunday Herald » Hail Happiness

All our lives, we hanker after that elusive state called ‘happiness’. But, isn’t happiness a relative term? Isn’t it driven from the inside? Shefali Tripathi Mehta wonders what happiness is all about.

It was a cold December evening in the north. I had just bought myself a pair of leather stiletto shoes that I had been lusting after. Returning home late from work, I walked up the quiet street. Most homes had their doors and windows tightly shut against the cold and there were very few people outside. In the hutments a little away, I could see people huddled around the open fires over which their meagre meals were being cooked.

The sassy clickety click of my shoes on the road was an immensely pleasing sound and I walked happy. Suddenly, from nowhere appeared a street urchin, a little boy of four or five. Driving an imaginary scooter, he buzzed past me in a thin shirt and leggings, his bare feet thumping loud and clear on the cold asphalt. The shame at my own vanity and the embarrassment at not being able to silence the harsh sound of my heels that night has stayed with me to remind that true happiness does not lie in stuff, it lives inside of the heart like it did in that little boy’s.

The happiness butterfly flits about teasingly. I wait for it to rest on my favourite music, parties, shopping, ‘likes’ on Facebook, a gourmet meal, a designer watch, a holiday, but it takes off, proving again and again that true happiness lies within the heart, not in worldly trappings.

Happiness is a choice

Like others of my generation, I too grew up on an overdose of the sad and the melancholy — the films, the songs, the literature. The heroes were drinking themselves to death; the heroines were drowning themselves in pools of their own tears and slashing their wrists. The songs of unrequited love and disillusionment were sweeter than those of hope and joy. Everyone almost wanted their love to not be reciprocated; to remain forever sad and heartbroken. Sadness was cool. It took years to unlearn that; to believe that the purpose of life is to live in joy — to unleash all the joy we can, not just for ourselves, but for all whose lives we touch.

Being happy needs practice. You cannot keep happiness in safekeeping till the moment you embark on that long-awaited Europe tour. Why not bake that cake, clean the windows, or play with the dog which will make you happy instantly? Then, day by day, moment from moment, happiness to happiness, we move and learn to live in that state. Happiness has to be cultivated and nurtured. Temporary setbacks, failures, lows and mood swings do not stifle a happy heart. A heart that has learnt to be happy will just spring back to its original state. A happy heart is one that embraces and accepts life with all its failings.

Elusive, transient, ephemeral is how happiness is most often described. This is true for momentary emotional states of bliss and joy like pleasant surprises, lucky breaks and other workings of the higher world, but today we know the science behind happiness and understand that a happy state of mind is an acquired art. Self-help books, spiritual gurus, life coaches and psychologists have ready-made formulas for achieving happiness — ‘The Ten Step Guide to Happiness’ and such.

Why do we live from one weekend to another? Why do we have the Monday morning blues and thank God for Fridays? Why do we long for breaks? And forever plan holidays? Because the original state of our mind longs for peace and tranquillity but is beleaguered by unease, discontent and feelings of emptiness. A busy morning is a microcosm of our lives — a razor-nicked chin, a burnt toast, spilled coffee, missed school bus, unscheduled power cut leading to frayed nerves, confusion and tears. This frantic pace of life and the demands of ‘professionalism’ complicate our living so that we are forever gripped with fear and self-doubt, packing more and more activity to stay ahead.

Accomplishment, praise, self-fulfilment contribute to personal happiness but not without the balance it requires in slowing down, accepting oneself, making time for others. A game of squash, a spa visit, a concert, lunch with friends are momentary pleasures that grow into conscious, regular habits of unwinding, leading to a lasting state of contentment and happiness.

Being happy

Good health, friendships, family, faith, charity, fulfilling career are known factors leading to the state of happiness. Dark chocolate and coffee will give you an instant high but try providing for a hungry child’s meals or a poor one’s education; just give a pair of slippers or a warm sweater to a poor kid and it will give you a high for life.

Physical and emotional well-being also contributes to happiness. It has been scientifically proven that exercise releases endorphins that give you a feeling of happiness. Working in the garden livens us up as the soil absorbs our negativity from the fingers. So you know that losing your head over the cobwebs will lead to cortisol build-up and a disgruntled house-help. Pick up the mop yourself, instead.

For me, being happy is also shedding inhibitions and living without regrets. While being wheeled in for a major surgery, the uncertainty of life a stark reality, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die without learning to eat with chopsticks or dancing!’ It is my firm belief that people who can sing and dance are happy. Also because I can’t do both. Every time people break into an impromptu jive, I run for cover. So, when the other day, the crowd around the bonfire broke into a random boogie woogie, I slunk into the shadows. Two left feet, my regular excuse, usually works but this adamant woman dancing with abandon and rather badly too, would have none of it. “No one’s looking at your feet!” she said and pulled me into the circle. Once I let myself go, it felt wonderfully liberating. So, happiness to me is also waving out to the kids standing along the railway tracks or calling up my old aunt who I haven’t spoken to in years. It is these moments of unbridled joy that make a life of happiness.

As for wealth being the source of happiness — a rich man near death was sad that he could not take his hard-earned money with him to heaven. So he prayed hard and God decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man got his largest suitcase and filled it with gold bars. He died and arrived at the gates of heaven. St Peter, on seeing the suitcase, said, “Hold on, you can’t bring that in here!” The man explained that he had permission. St Peter checked and said, “You’re right. You’re allowed one bag, but I’m supposed to check its contents.” He opened the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaimed, “You brought pavement?”

When a parcel from home arrives and you hit a high, you know it isn’t the things really but the love and affection that lies silently folded inside. Happiness is a broad spectrum emotion — from the peace that descends on the 24x7 unswitchable mind on a quiet hill to the powerful feeling of satisfaction on a goal accomplished. It is relative, it is wavering. Robert Frost was spot on when he said, “Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.”

Mother India Fuming!

I’ll push, I’m posh! The new mantra has been unleashed on us. The south Delhi madams who are eager to let drop, ‘Kal ghar main raid padi thi,’ so you know, have a new status symbol to flaunt. ‘I pushed, you know?’ they declare, touching the baby's chin lightly when it is brought in by the ayah, bathed and perfumed for the daily darshan of the Mamma before Mamma leaves for the spa. She’s so stressed, you see. The nurse says she got no sleep last night. The nurse.

The masses are completely taken by surprise at this sudden issue reversal. They’ve been let down by their idols. Just when they upgraded their vocab to include the cease – re – an and began to boast of the eye-widening , ‘Cease –re – an, bade opreshan se hua hai!’ This woman and her father-in-law came and completely overturned the snob-value ladder!

The Big B family otherwise known to guard their personal lives intensely suddenly went public with details of the delivery. At the press conference AB snapped at a very ritualistic question by a journalist, “Why do you want to know the weight!” I’m sure the journalist had not meant Aishwarya’s weight. But Father-in-law dwelt over the pain she bore for a long time without painkillers, the labour, the NORMAL delivery. Now when you say Taj Mahal, I do visualize Taj Mahal as the domed, white structure and not the crying, desperate love in the hearts of Shahjahan and his beloved. Likewise, when the Father-in-law draws his drawl longer in, ‘Aishwarya kept trying...’ my own body stiffens in sympathy and you know how I...visualize her. And everyone else does too – all the men who grew up dreaming of her making boiled tea in their kitchens.

Women facebookers, bloggers and tweeters are falling over one another (including me, of course) in their censure of this newest self-back-patting by the Bachchans. The misplaced sense of self-righteousness, the glorification of pain has Mother India fuming. Caesarean, normal, painkilled, induced, pushed, they say, is as personal a choice as Huggies or Pampers! Did we tell you sir that our grandfathers sported their bald pates with pride? Just a matter of personal choice, sir.

‘It’s an issue, goddamit!’ Big B fumes right back. Really? Is it so easy to forget that in this country hundreds of women try hard to hold their babies till they can reach the nearest hospital which may be 200 kilometers away? Hold on with fortitude to intense labour waiting outside hospitals begging for admission, for help. And so many of them and their newborns just die unattended. Issue that?

Ask the doctors, how many babies and their mothers have been saved because of the C Section? There is nothing wrong in requiring or preferring a caesarean section delivery. Let not these false notions of womanhood shake your pride in your independence, freedom of choice. Remember, when a glass of water is brought to you on a tray held by sanitised, gloved hands and you pick it and drink, no one lauds your effort, real woman.

I know we haven’t heard the last of this, even as columnists are busy tapping their keyboards right now. Sixteen to eighteen years hence, I’m afraid, Missy Bachchan in her Filmfare award acceptance will part her gooey lips to tell us that she owes it all to her beautiful mom who decided to push her. The hall will break into a thunderous applause and made-up, beautiful eyes will spout copious tears. Nah! Keep your tissues to yourself!

La La Land - The Reading Hour (Sept-Oct 2011 Issue)

By: Shefali Tripathi Mehta

I caught the whiff of the topic even as I joined the conversation late. The girls were chattering excitedly about Victoria’s secret. I slumped into CCD’s bucket chair and in an effort to quickly be-with-it, chipped in, I too had read about her Muslim cook. Half of them fell off their buckets laughing. The other half decided they would ignore me for the rest of their lives.

Thus chastised, I sat all night in my full-sleeved, toe-tipping white flannel nightie planning how to bridge the gap. Enormous it was. Time was when a man accompanying a woman to a lingerie shop lingered outside. The shop sold other things – egg, hairpin, gajak, raincoat. But it had a small hidden corner for the ladies and didn’t have to proclaim that business on the name board outside. Selling rat poison and toilet cleaner was totally respectable. Not so knickers. In that cloistered corner, women attended women. They gave what you asked for and never checked you out to advise, “I think you need the next size”! If you said you wanted one with blue flowers but only yellow were available, you didn’t insist. It was indelicate. Almost a decade ago, I overheard two male colleagues hotly discussing whether it was lin-g-ri or lau-je-ree and wondered why they would need to use it. The word, that is.

Sanitary napkins were asked for in hushed tones. In fact, the hush itself was enough. You just walked into a store with a somber expression and the person behind the counter automatically reached out for the packs in the lowest or the topmost shelves where they were stacked out of sight. A wrong brand and you shook your head very slightly or raised a finger in another direction. If it wasn’t understood, you took the name of the color of the pack. Green one. It was then handed over discreetly wrapped in brown paper. Much later, in black garbage disposal bags. All this discretion came to naught the moment you walked out of the store with the pack that did not look like a loaf of bread or a cushion.

The pacing-thinking night was rewarded with an ad in the morning newspaper for a SALE of women’s itsy-bitsies. A sale that would ‘change your life’. Close-necked and full-sleeved, I arrived at the venue. Outside, a mammoth panel had stringy two pieces drawing-pinned to it. Was my sleep-deficient mind breathing life into pictures from the tattered salon Cosmopolitan? Was inner wear, outer? I mean, where would those that wanted to stick these on to themselves, do it? Since our swim pools and beaches still have soaked-to-the-skin and revealing every tyre, salwar-suited and sareed beauties that bystanding men in underwear cannot have enough of, getting into shape for these little triangles would seem so completely pointless, no?

I stepped into a hallful of frenzied women of all variety – tender zeros and abundant others; covered in shapeless tents and uncovered in low rise jeans; noodle strapped, nude strapped and unstrapped. The chatter was distinct. Sassy guffaws, muffled giggles, restraining grins of 32 As and loud proclamations of 36 Ds.

Some wide-eyed, bushy-tailed male escorts followed their ladies carrying their heap of fantasies, pretending duty; imagining every shapely woman in sight in red lace or yellow sheer; now and then nodding slightly at something held out for approval or pointing discreetly at something some other woman was holding to herself.

Two demure looking kurta-dupatta-ed girls ahead of me rummaged through a carton marked ‘Passion’ in uneven capitals. One pulled out a barely-there and held it out to the other, ‘Here, this!’ ‘Chee!’ The other exclaimed mortified at the public exposé of her private fantasies and buried her head into another carton to hide her flush. ‘What chee? Didn’t we come here for this?’ The spunky first quickly shoved the coveted piece into her own bag. With the number of eyes popping out, I wondered if at such sales they should also sell something to hold the eyes firmly in place.

To Sir on FB

You are here: Home » Supplements » DH Education » To Sir, on FB
BLURRING BOUNDARIES

To Sir, on FB

The teacher-student relationship has undergone a sea change in the recent past. Shefali Tripathi Mehta wonders if this is a good trend

Because my teacher said so! This statement always clamps any further discussion on any subject between little ones and their parents. The teacher’s word is final, something parents bow down to, and not always willingly.Most children have played out the role of a teacher during play time and have dreamt of becoming one too, some day. Teachers were idols. They were held in high esteem in society too. Parents never referred to teachers without the title sir/miss/ma’am.

Every student had his/her favourite guru and most of these teachers were not just good teachers and masters of their subjects, but also counsellors and friends.

Students and teachers today share a more easy and casual relationship. They are Facebook friends and even text message each other. The general culture of informality in society, spurred by superfast means of communication, including email, text messaging and social networking, have radically altered the relationship between students and their teachers.

Familiarity over formality

In the past, a chance meeting with a teacher in the market or movie hall would catapult a student into an object of envy among other students at school. They would be full of curious questions about the teacher — what they said, what they wore, who was with them. Teachers did not exist outside the school then. Now students ‘Like’ and comment on their teachers’ holiday pictures on social networking sites; and call or text them at odd, after-school hours.

Very often, emails and text messages are without greeting or salutation and writing etiquette is dispensed with in order to get the message across instantaneously. What was once downright rude is now cool. Is this level of over-familiarity good for the relationship that must rest on discipline and decorum?

School lives are essentially organised and actions are clearly right or wrong. There is punishment for wrong and reward for good. The early years ensured there was discipline. Everyone knows that the foremost impression of a teacher in the classroom is about his or her ability to assume and demonstrate authority — command and control the class. Some teachers achieved this by being stern while others were gentle and friendly. But the line that divided the student and the teacher stayed firmly in place — sometimes tautly stretched, sometimes a little lax, but rarely down.

Blurring boundaries can lead to a lot of other problems other than that of discipline. Casual communication tends to get too personal. Students are emboldened to ask questions they would not have the courage to ask in person. Crushes on teachers are commonplace, but so are the more damaging romantic or inappropriate relationships. These have existed even before, but spur-of-the-moment communication and unclear private and professional boundaries lead to greater propensity of such.

But there is enough evidence to state that most schools and teachers are struggling with the complexities that are emerging out of the changing dynamics of student-teacher interaction. Thanks to this, many have laid down clear guidelines on interaction with students outside of and after school; and appropriate and acceptable conduct.

To connect or not

Many argue that teachers are more accessible now, which is good for students. Schools have websites where they encourage interaction with teachers and students; post announcements, results and assignments; and even encourage real-time chat.

Is this required? Is it really good for both parties? Some teachers believe that it helps them understand and know their students better. But wasn’t the teacher-student bond much stronger in the pre-Facebook days? Didn’t the teachers then take time out during school hours and within school to offer help and guidance?

Better implementation of appropriate guidelines will do everyone good in the long run.