Happiness Was Born A Twin!

Any act that can bring even a single ray of happiness is like the rain from heaven on a parched summer field .. it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, upon the place beneath it is twice blessed, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes....such is the power of this emotion that it has to be shared at its very realisation. So much moral science and preaching has gone in instilling the value of making some person happy---so many slogans follow the dictum to give weight to the value of the act---for parents it requires many bed time stories for the child to learn the art of making another happy, till the whole act comes under the banner of "a good act." A good act can be anything---helping an aged or feeding a poor hungry child---it is an immense range, but I feel ,happiness is a bliss that surpasses all---and if any such act can make a heart happy , it can be crowned as the best of good acts.

I, too, have enjoyed this magic on many occasions, and the hangover of it has left me happy too....I gave happiness and got it doubled in return to myself. One evening, in the month of July, when the sky was overcast and the downpour was heavy, I sat in my porch viewing my 'kerchief sized garden, enjoying the poetic beauty all around--the mind full of many thoughts that go with solitude.My trance broke as my phone rang breaking the music of the rain drops. It was a call from my uncle and aunt in another city.Both of them are above eighty, staying alone by themselves, braving the hazards of age and depending on small phone calls from friends and nieces, once in a while, to break the monotony that envelops at this stage of life.

It was raining at their place too, and I could sense the gloom that was around them in a dark rainy evening that prompted them to make a call to break the lull of boredom there. We spoke on the same usual stuff, on the regular problems, power cuts, blocked drains, the helping maid not turning up....making our voices lively at both ends to pep up the air around. Exchanging a few more well-being questions we cut off. As I sat reviewing our talks to myself , I realised that though they made the call to bring some cheer in their dull rainy evening, yet their monotony did not much break by the talks ....they perhaps have learnt to live this way...taking it all in its stride, and may be, I too, am quite used to it when I think of them. Lazily thinking on all this, I recalled an event, that, I felt, will make these two aged get some spark of happiness in their lonely evening..some happy food for thought if not anything else. I took my phone and dialled their number. My aunt received it...least expecting that it would be me in line. I said I have something good to tell you both and I am sure it will make you both ponder on sun and sunshine and cheers in this drab rainy evening. She, at once, as if got charged up...I heard her calling out to uncle to come soon as their niece has something good to share with them. Her eagerness expressed how much in want they were for some thing good to hear or share...I too got boosted hearing her happy response. It was a simple message.....but it was a compliment that would ring tingling bells in their ears of by-gone years. I related to her an evening of friends that I had organised at my place some weeks back....in that gathering they all sat with our family album as I got busy with the serving. As they went through the album they came across some photos when uncle and aunt got married..some wedding snaps. My aunt as a bride was a beauty...and my friends remained rapt in admiration seeing my aunt's snaps and kept repeating sweet compliments for me to hear. Hearing it from my friends was itself a happy and pleasant moment for me and I had thought that I must pass this simple piece of compliment to my aunt if I get the chance....and I appropriately took the opportunity of this dark gloomy rainy evening to brighten up the rainy dusk of two lonely hearts. I told aunt the whole story of that evening....it was music to hear her ripple of laughter from the other end--- as the saying goes, " praise the sweetest of all music makes most of us uneasy" so she too, sounded a bit embarrassed, a bit taken aback and yet happy.... she seemed to get back to that day of her life...her quiet world suddenly seemed to bring in the sweet melodies of shehnais, the laughter the warmth that this day had carried to her heart years ago. Her cheerful response seemed to wash away her little innumerable problems that hovered round her present life and which had buried the cheer of these years in her heart almost forgotten. My purpose was fulfilled. She jokingly said her evening was made complete...but I knew there was no joke in her saying...I knew she would be musing on the happy times of her life full of colour years ago.

After cutting off, I myself remained in a happy frame of mind thinking that I had been able to make two lonely hearts happy in their solitude in a rain washed dark evening. Somehow not only on feast days, but all the life long through, the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you...so this was no feast day..nor any big occasion...just a rainy lonely evening and I once again realised that happiness was indeed born a twin.