Meaning in happiness

I was reading a book yesterday that had these words on the first page ...

“But there’s the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning – the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life – a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.”

I liked the lines. I have always been in search of happiness in my life – things that could make someone else happy were never enough for me. Every happiness I searched for turned out to be fleeting. And one experience of it was enough to convince me of its ephemeral nature. The happiness that I found was also of a nature that never filled the depths of my soul – they could perhaps at most fill in a layer or two on the top to look cosmetically perfect but the yawning pit of unhappiness was there always – just below the seeming perfection.

That being the case, I read everywhere that the key to being happy was to live in the moment. I have written about that on this blog umpteen times. I have learnt to redefine what would make me happy over the years but I have yet to learn how to live in the moment. So when I read these lines, it came to me that I wasn’t searching for happiness since I too have a measure of happiness in my life that would satisfy most people  – I was searching for meaning. Once I found it, the happiness would flow in on its own. What was the reason I was put on earth? Why is it that a humdrum 9 to 5 job never appealed? What kept me from following the traditional path to relative prosperity that I saw all around me here in Bangalore and prior to that, in the Silicon Valley – where everyone I knew was a software engineer or an engineer’s wife – following a blueprint drawn in stone with the dangling carrot of American citizenship as the biggest milestone. I never wanted to be like that. And yet I am not anything specific even now after being on this earth for rather a long time.

The good part is I now think that my inability to live in the moment is part of the journey to seek meaning and not some permanent failing. All the yesterdays come together to make today and give it its existence – what we do today determines our tomorrow. Living in a present that is a bridge between what was and what will be is always a tricky proposition. Not looking forward or backward while staying perfectly still in the moment is an art indeed.

I think most people I know are unhappy on some level. There is a state of relative happiness determined by the absence of major personal or professional problems and a degree of financial stability –I see that around me wherever I look. But I rarely find anyone looking deeper into themselves to find out if this indeed is all there is in life. Are you doing what you know you do best? Or are you settling for something less in order to achieve the safe, stable happiness that poses no danger at all? Do you feel that if you were to leave the world today, you have achieved or were on the road to achieve exactly what you wanted in life? Do your relationships matter so much that you are true to them completely? I must be slightly nuts to ponder so much on the nature and meaning of happiness but then that’s what I do.

So happiness and meaning go hand in hand – just like the yesterdays and tomorrows. One day I might actually discover for myself the true meaning and purpose of my life – no matter what, that day will find me truly happy.

A movie after my heart

I watched Padmarajan’s Thuvanathumbikal the other day – for the very first time. The man was a genius indeed. I was completely blown away by the story, by the treatment and by the excellent acting of every single character. This was a movie way ahead of its time – gutsy and touching all at once. Mohanlal as Jayakrishnan , the rural landowner from a village near Trichur , is simply terrific. But Sumalatha’s  Clara was in the same league. Its such a treat to watch a movie that not only has an original theme but also acting of such calibre that you lose yourself in the watching.

Right from the beginning of the movie when Jayakrishnan’s tightfistedness is shown to his completely different face when he escapes into Trichur for some fun, the movie gets you hooked. He lives for his friends – bankrolling their fun but other than being a frequenter at the bars, possessing of no vices himself. He has never slept with a woman for he was not the type to be able to walk away after a physical connection with someone. He was adamant that he wouldn’t be the cause of any woman’s dishonour. He had the reputation of a rake in college – an image he assiduously cultivated – but all his close friends knew that he was far from that in reality.

He finds himself attracted to Radha, a girl from a family related to his after she speaks her mind to him in the course of inviting his mother and sister to a family function. He goes to her college to ask her if she’d like to marry him since he was interested in her. She gives him an insulting negative in response. He flares up and gives her a reply in kind. He’s hurt and walks away. When Radha’s brother who happens to be a friend of Jayakrishnan learns of this incident, he berates his sister for being rude and tells him what a nice guy she had let slip. Radha gets intrigued and finds out his story by asking around and she cannot reconcile his completely different faces. She believes his true face is even more interesting and would only be revealed to the girl he loves. She lets him know she’s interested and they meet and talk often.

In the meantime when he was convinced of Radha’s disinterest, his friend approaches him to deal with a problematic girl who was the latest recruit in his ‘hotel’ business. The girl seemed willing enough to be a hooker – she had a hard family life and wasn’t highly educated. She was resigned but not eager and possessed of a poise that put the hotel manager off – so he needed Jayakrishnan to talk to her and find out what she really wanted. He reluctantly agrees and poses as a timber contractor and approaches her. She is lovely and intelligent. Her eyes are self-assured with a hint of vulnerability that make men want to protect her. She has an air of acceptance about her and she smiles often.

He is hooked when he first sets eyes on Clara and there is no looking back. They make love and he wants to marry the first woman he’s been intimate with. He tells her his real name, his village, all about his life. He tells her to stay in the room while he goes out to get some work done and by the time he’s back she has left. No one knows where she has disappeared to. He leaves with a heavy heart.

Later on he recounts the story to Radha who says its all fine so long as he never meets her again. He says that Clara would always be different. The first time he heard her name it rained. The first time he made love to her, it rained. Whenever she would come into his life, she would bring in the rains quenching his need and refreshing his mind. He would never not love Clara. But Radha was a practical sort – she was sure that was the last he’d hear of her.

Clara comes back one fine day – she sends him a telegram informing him about the train timings. He goes to pick her up and they stay away from the town and his village in a small run-down cottage, talking as if they had never been apart – sharing their bodies and minds with unquestioning love. She tells him about the other men. He tells her about Radha. She is happy for him. He is quiet when she tells him of the way each customer always ends up wanting her to marry him. Her laughter and the sadness in her eyes are undiminished – and she looks so beautiful that he is lost the moment he sees her alighting from a dusty train in a dusty station at 3 in the morning. They part with her vowing that they would not meet again after he marries Radha.

The days pass and his wedding to Radha is now being planned in full force. Lots of ups and down occur in their relationship when he tells her of his second meeting with Clara. But she is still devoted to him and they want to get married. His emotions are not clear beyond a fondness for the spirited country girl – she would undoubtedly fit in well with the family and make a good wife. His practical side acknowledges the need for her in his life. She too is beautiful. And yet when you see him with her, he does not glow with happiness the way he does with Clara.

Then one day the rains bring to him another telegram bearing news of Clara’s arrival. He tells Radha that he would go to see her. Radha says adamantly that the wedding date, indeed the wedding itself need be finalized only after his meeting with Clara since she clearly did not want him to go. Jayakrishnan is equally stubborn – nothing she said would make him change his mind and he promises her that he would marry her immediately if it would put her mind to rest but he would still meet Clara. She refuses and says she’d rather wait.

The day finally dawns when Jayakrishnan is shown waiting impatiently at the station. Radha waits in the shadows unknown to him. The train pulls up and he sees her at the door resplendent in a cream silk sari with a red-gold border. She has her thali and kumkum – all marks of a married woman and she walks towards him looking breathtakingly beautiful. A fleeting pain passes over his face before he smiles at her. She answers his unasked question saying she was married a year ago and she only stopped by on her way elsewhere so that she could say goodbye before his wedding. Her husband, an older gentleman, pops out of the compartment with a baby in his arms and she takes the infant from him while making the introductions. 

He leaves them alone and she looks at Jayakrishnan with all the old love in her eyes saying “I did not want us to do something that would ruin your life and the last time I was here I felt I was in danger of doing that. This was my only way out – the only way I could save you from myself.” He continues to be quiet while his eyes speak volumes and he looks tenderly at the baby in her arms. Her husband takes the child and re-enters the compartment while they say their final goodbyes. The whistle sounds and she boards the train – waving at him till a bend in the tracks takes her out of his sight forever.He keeps waving till after the train has left. It was the only ending that would work and yet he knew he could never love another woman the way he loved Clara. Radha steps out of the shadows. He smiles at her. They leave together. It does not rain.

What a movie! The theme was so beautifully presented that I fell in love with it immediately. The idea of a love that would transcend every conditioned thought is glorious. To know the kind of love that would make you set aside everything else and think only of the beloved with neither ego nor judgement clouding the most intense emotion in the world – that is a rare blessing indeed. Clara is a wonderful creature – not bound by morals as we know it – oddly practical and intensely passionate with the fore-knowledge that she would never get the chance to live with her one true love and yet smiling and grabbing those rare moments that she would cherish with him. Indeed a story that required courage to write and present to a Malayali crowd more than two decades ago.

Its worth watching more than once but to truly understand the spirit of this movie, you need to have been passionately in love some time in your life...

The little jasmine

I have a famous brown thumb. Nothing I plant normally gets anywhere. I therefore simply don’t do any gardening whatsoever. The brown earth of my backyard mocks me constantly. I have tried gardeners but S will not let me plant flowers or put in a lawn. He thinks we should grow organic vegetables. I cannot find a gardener who knows squat about planting vegetables however! Besides that just means more work for me – he isn’t going to water them or fertilize them or even look at the backyard more often than once a year. So I said forget it.

This plant however I had put in quite a few years ago. Its a jasmine plant. The flowers are not very pretty unlike jasmine flowers normally – in fact they are a little ungainly. The petals lack symmetry and the colour is off-white as opposed to the pristine whiteness of the other varieties. But oh the flowers are so sweet-smelling that a single bloom can fill the air with heady fragrance. During one of my backyard-renovation schemes, I had gotten the wall tiled with terracotta tiles. I had told the workers expressly to not step on the plants but they did just that. Out of the plants that I lost, the little jasmine plant was the one I missed most. It lay crushed on the ground looking sad and done for. I left it just so thinking that there was nothing I could do for it but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

Today morning I sat quietly at the dining table, closed off from the world and lost in my thoughts which were not of a very happy nature. I had to think of something else to focus on – writing was a thing of the past. What did it matter that its perhaps my only talent – without validation of any sort, without growing into anything more than mere writing it meant less than nothing in the long run. So there I sat with my chin on my hand looking out at a brown backyard and resting my eyes on the little mango tree when I spotted a flash of white. I looked carefully and to my surprise saw one little ungainly jasmine blossom on a tiny plant. I got up and peered through the grills. I wasn’t mistaken – there it was – smiling at me – as though back from the dead. I had given it no chance of survival. It had taken so long to revive itself that I had indeed forgotten about it altogether.

A slow smile started. The ugly jasmine didn’t die after all. Maybe it was unimportant to everyone else. Certainly my husband wouldn’t notice it. But for me it was like a sign. It didn’t seem to matter to the little plant that it could only produce one flower. It didn’t seem to matter to the flower itself that it was not at all pretty. Neither did it bother itself with wondering if anyone else could appreciate its fragrance. It was just a flower – it bloomed – those who wished to enjoy it could do so freely. But whether you paid attention or not, whether you valued it or not, it would continue to bloom and spread fragrance – that was its inherent nature – no one could change that not even the flower itself.

I did not magically transform back to my normal self but I did start thinking that it didn’t matter so much whether I would ever write my book or whether anyone around would believe in me enough to think that I had it in me. I cannot stop writing. Its my nature – maybe these words are only for myself. Maybe, just maybe someone who is going through a hard time will come across these lines and think that everyone has a time to bloom, that bad patches cannot last forever, that the most worthwhile thing you can do is be true to yourself. And me? I am going to go and smell that jasmine J

Lessons from a break

After fifteen days away and most of the comforts one is normally used to, Appu and I finally got back home. It was a pretty tiring journey but we were so glad to be back, we didn’t really mind any of it. My husband had been travelling that whole week and when he had to make the long journey to and fro to pick us up, he was completely exhausted. He didn’t sleep a wink and was throwing up and totally worn out by next morning. As I woke up early and was getting ready to go for my morning walk – a routine which I wanted to get back to as quickly as possible – he smiled at me from the bed and said “I know when I see you first thing in the morning, that all will be right with the world – I can lie back knowing you are there to take care of everyone.” I stopped and smiled back, touched at his words for he is not someone who is normally expressive – now that’s a homecoming anyone would want to be blessed with.

I walked for close to an hour enjoying the wonderful weather and noticing all the little things I normally miss out. I saw a lot more birds than I usually do because for days during my little retreat I was silent enough that I could note different bird calls and even spy the songsters hidden in the leafy boughs. I then went back home and got into the usual chaos that is a weekday morning. All through the day I was thinking of what a few days away taught me. So many lessons really. Sometimes its nice to gain new perspectives in life – we are all way too prone to taking things for granted and even to repeating little mistakes that we would be better off not committing at all. We also forget to be grateful for all that we have been blessed with and instead focus only on our grievances. Take a few steps back and look again at your life – you will realize that you are indeed lucky.

The first thing I learnt was how important it was to lead a simple life. Why do we always think we need all sorts of things to be happy? We clutter our life with thoughts, objects, desires and even people in order to seek happiness and yet find ourselves strangely empty and unfulfilled. If you quietly take stock of what is really meaningful in your life and trim away everything else, you can see how little you need to be truly happy. Never bother about what constitutes someone else’s idea of happiness. It is not yours. Think only of what you truly need and keep that alone. De-cluttering your thoughts will follow naturally and you will end up feeling lighter. Another advantage of simplifying your life is that your sense of self-importance is automatically reduced. You are above no one else. A little humility never hurt anyone.

Another lesson I learnt was the power of silence. Its was just Appu and me for so many days and he is a great teacher of silence. He doesn’t chatter at all. And my days and nights were therefore very quiet. I got perhaps one call a day from my husband. Occasionally a friend would call but other than that absolute silence reigned except for essential communication. I didn’t have a single stress headache. I didn’t sit in front of my laptop chatting with friends or attempting to write. There was no internet, no TV, no entertainment of any sort and it was surprisingly easy to get used to. There were days initially when I felt lonely but for the most part the silence was refreshing. I learnt to not raise my voice since I didn’t have to compete with the TV or computer for Appu’s attention. He was happier for it. I didn’t have anything else take up my time so for hours together after attending to whatever my son needed, I would sit and daydream like I used to as a girl. I threaded flowers into a garland, I wrote in my little notebook, I went for walks and saw peacocks. I didn’t need to talk for any of it.

I learnt things about myself I am not proud of. I wallowed in self-doubt for a few days. I pondered on my importance in others’ lives and reached the sad conclusion that while I may be needed, I am not truly indispensable to anyone at all. I think no one is actually. Also no one is so important to the world that everyone is waiting with bated breath to see whether you are going to screw up or not. So go ahead and try whatever you ever wanted to try doing. Your mistakes aren’t world disasters either! It is kind of comforting to think of your life in such terms. In other words, the sheer ordinariness of our existence should give us the courage to make mistakes and experiment , living life to the fullest extent possible.

I will go back and learn more some time. After all, Appu and I have a long journey together ...