Because I am Happy...

A very wise man once said “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.” I am one of those people who are on a constant ‘pursuit of happiness’. Vey ‘pun’-ny isn’t it?! My humour has always been termed as sarcastic and I am really proud of that fact that I am sarcastic. But I guess the joke is on me now because my friends now refuse to take me seriously. I am now the girl who cried wolf too many times. Like the other day, I complimented my friend on something that she did. She used to be my partner-in-crime back in high school, now she is my roommate. She turned around and narrowed her eyes and looked at me and said For real? I was stumped. What was for real? The compliment that you just passed on. Of course it was for real. Oh, okay then. She shrugged her shoulders. It’s just that with you I never know, she explained. Ouch! That hurt! I look at her dismayed. She grins at me and says I am sorry, but I can never take your first word about anything at its face value. Yes so that’s me, that’s happiness for me. 

Pharrell Williams has come up with his version of happiness and I spent my first day back in Mumbai from Hyderabad singing it throughout the day. I hummed “Because I am happy, Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, Because I am happy, Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth, Because I am happy, Clap along if you know what happiness is to you, Because I am happy, Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do.” I sure did, I felt like clapping to myself, and wanted to hop, skip and jump to work that day.  I was the first one to turn up at office. I greeted everyone of the cleaning crew, yes I was that early. They were happy to see me; I had been away for almost 35 days. Madam, ghar gaye the kya? Bohut Khush nazaar aa rahe ho! I smile at them and say  Arre nehin nehin, ghar nehin, Hyderabad gayi thi, office ke kaam pe. Aaj hi lauti hoon. Bohut achha lag raha hai Bombay wapas aake. Because at that moment I was happy and I knew what happiness was to me. I had stopped looking for it and I had found it. The wise man was right.  

This wise man is none other than Albert Camus and he usually inspires melancholia within me rather than happiness. So there I was stuck in an alien city, homesick to death, had no idea when I would get out of the place and I came across his writing. Which brings me to my use of homesick; I was homesick for a place that has been my home for only about a year. Funny how some places make you feel at ease just like that, with a snap of a finger and some never. I always associate Bombay with this quote by Simon Van Booy – “For those who are lost, there will always be cities that feel like home.” Don’t get me wrong, Calcutta will always have my heart but I think Bombay is what feeds my soul. Right now I can’t even imagine my life away from Bombay, without its ruckus and insanity and madness. It reminds me of a life that I had always dreamed of living but never had the guts to live it out, but then Bombay made me live it!