The perennial source of happiness

Life is too short so live the maximum of it. This is a common saying in which each word makes a perfect sense. Though I have been living every moment of my life I did not think deeply about this until I saw a French movie, Amelie. This movie actually portrays the life of a simple girl next-door who derives pleasure out of small petty things around her. One another example is the little boy Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par in which he keeps staring on every beautiful treat that the nature offers but later ends up getting scoldings. So I just felt like comparing my experiences with these people's. It happened to be true that I am also in the habit of noticing the beautiful things around me which others have failed to notice.


Stones
Wherever I go, I like collecting stones. Sounds bizzare?? Yes! Any stone that looks a bit different to me I keep it in my bag and bring it home. I show to my mom with great pride. "Look, I have got something special today". The stones may be round, square, shapeless in blue,violet,pink,green or sometimes multi-coloured. They are actually precious stones for me. I can say it is invaluable because i love them more than the diamonds and rubies. Value after all is one's own perspective. May be this was why I wanted to be a Geologist. Also I like the sound when a pebble is dropped into water. Then following it are the ripples which are formed. I can keep on watching these till there are no stones left to drop.


Clouds
I like watching the clouds and imagining shapes which matches some real-world things around me. And sometimes my conclusion ends up in an Amoeba. :) You can infact make a short film out of the movement of clouds in 10 minutes. It makes me very excited and thoughtful. I am a good dreamer. Day-dreamer you can say. Imaginations are so powerful that you may never even think of it happening in real life.


Dogs
I love dogs though I have never grown one. If I am given a choice of seeing boys and dogs in an instance i would probably choose to see dogs :) I have even decided to resign my job after 40 or 45 to stay at home and grow a dog. Wherever I go, if I see a dog that looks clean I never hesitate to tough and play with it. Though I know that I may never see it again or even if i see i may not be able to recognize it. But I make sure that I have lived those 5 minutes of my life. And I get so many such 5 minutes. You can get instant gratitude and affection from that animal. So probably if you are walking alone in the road you can make friends easily. There is no question of trust you see :)


Birds
I love travelling and have been travelling long distances since I was born. Train journey is a perfect time to notice the world around you because you have nothing else to do. Well, I sleep during the nights because it is too dark outside to notice anything. Morning time, people say it is the most boring part of any journey. But had you done what I have been doing so far, you would not feel the boredom. You would have probable seen the electric lines along the track. But have you ever seen the beautiful birds that sit on these lines? Not those ordinary birds which you see in the cities. Villages are rich in fauna. I still have them photographed in my brain. Wow!! Nature really makes you wonder how these colours are ever produced. Orange, Yellow, Sky blue, Purple, Red etc and also imagine the permutations and combinations of these colors. You don't have to go to a bird sanctuary and see the specific birds that migrate there. You have a jumbo-size bird sanctuary in your reach where there are no limitations of species u can watch.


Going places by merely talking
You never have to estimate the practicality or feasibility for talking :). Whenever I see programs in Travel and Living or NDTV good times or any program that shows adventures or travel or food, my roommate and I start discussing about our "imaginary trip" to the places shown. We actually plan how to get there, which season to go, what food to eat, what sports we have to participate, how to travel there so many such discussions. So we actually travel to these places, live there just by talking for one hour. We plan about bungee jumping, rafting, tree houses,bloody mary,black forest, a cosy hotel, snow capped mountains and what not!! At the end of discussion we actually feel as ecstatic as we have really traveled to those places. It is really a wonderful experience.I have lived that one hour without spending a penny. Who knows! When I really go to these places later in your lifetime, I will definitely remember the discussion I had earlier not knowing this would really happen. That would make me even happier.

Planets
Whenever I am able to see the sky I watch the planets. The easiest way to identify the planets from stars is that they don't twinkle. The one planet I am sure everyone can find is Mars because it is orange in color. So I try to locate it and compare with the snapshot of its position in my mind. Of course the snapshot is relative to the position of moon :). Voila!! I became an astronomer. :) :)

These are actually very few of the thousands of small pleasures I derive my happiness from. I live every moment of my life when I don't work or sleep. You can try many such methods to keep you, your mind and your imaginations active and healthy.The source of happiness is around you and you just have to identify it. After all what we want in life is happiness in us and around us.

PS: I have not given much importance to the language. Please do not mind.. :P

Home sweet home

I have now experienced almost one year of hostel life. I can just quote these times as the purple hours of my life. I had never been in hostel till I finished my college. I was safe and protected in my parents’ nest. Then came the time to fly out of the haven into the big-big world that was waiting for me. I was never scared of staying in a hostel or repining about it. I was ready to face the outside world. Everything was new here- the place, the language, the lifestyle, the people, the atmosphere and above all my job.

Now leaving beside my job and city, let me take only my life at hostel. Adapting to this new cosmos took me some 3 to 4 months. I was feeling lonely away from home and college friends. Slowly I became one among them or rather I can say they took me into theirs. My initial reserved attitude gradually changed. Since everyone else was elder to me, all my room- mates (9 ppl) started treating me like their kid sister. I was feeling protective again. I realized that God never lets anyone alone. All my apprehensions about how I am going to stay alone vanished because I was not alone anymore. Some of my hostel mates became more than friends with whom I was able to share all my joys and sorrows and discuss about my life and career. They turned to be my philosophers and guides. I got inspired from their experiences.

My personality thereby is getting more and more matured. I am now able to take sensible decisions on my own, manage money that I earn and channelize my thoughts to fulfill my dreams. This sense of self-controlled independence makes me feel proud of myself because I am safe in this path to success which my parents always wanted. Yes, I do sometimes feel nostalgic. It is natural. But that makes me emotionally stronger. My circle of close friends is becoming bigger day by day. So I have not lost anything is this estranged world. I have discovered myself in this home away from home more than what I did at my home itself.

Strangers will never be strangers always. They may one day make you befriend the stranger in you.

This was just a little feeling I sense everyday. To keep this alive forever I am publishing it here. I hope many of you would have had similar experiences in life.