Twenty- five Seven

The importance of being happy

March 18, 2021

20th March is International Happiness Day. Did you know that? I definitely didn’t.

Surprised ?

Well, to be quite honest, I didn’t think happiness needed to be recognised and acknowledged as something special by having a special day designated for it.

I firmly believe that happiness is something that happens naturally and organically. I don’t wake up in the morning saying that today I will be happy . In fact , just doing things I like doing make me happy.And I also believe that everybody can be happy without making any special effort to be happy.

But it seems that Jayme Illean, a Special Advisor to the UN who had spent his early childhood years in Mother Theresa’s Orphanage in Kolkata before being adopted by an American family , felt that feeling happy is the right of every human being and not many people are aware of the part happiness plays in Mental Health. Thus , he campaigned for many years and finally got the UN to adopt 20th March as the International Day of Happiness. The first one ever was celebrated in 2003 so celebrating happiness day is a pretty recent phenomenon.

What is the purpose of observing this day? Happiness isn’t a right that you can enforce . Nor is it an exclusive privilege of a few . So why is it necessary to have a day for happiness?

Illean felt that everyone should become aware of the part positivity plays and observing this day as such will go a long way in creating awareness. Hence , UN member nations are encouraged to celebrate this day .

Being happy is not something one consciously seeks in one’s daily life . So engrossed are we in the pursuit of success that the pursuit of happiness is relegated to another box to tick.

But it would seem that in the pursuit of other things in life, happiness is often elusive . We tend to forget that happiness is not constant nor is it guaranteed. There are moments when even normally happy people face ‘down’ times .

2020 was a particularly hard year for everyone . It was hard to stay cheerful when faced with uncertainties of employment, food supplies , health and even life itself . With everything changing everyday became a new challenge .

Even one year on when vaccination programs are being conducted world wide , when we know slightly more about the virus, it still looms large in our lives. Everyone is worried who will be next. The second wave is rearing its ugly head once more with more CoVid cases coming to light every day.

Hence, happiness is even more important in our lives because it is a well known fact that feeling down or depressed can make you more susceptible to illness .

“The theme for this year’s International Day of Happiness is ‘Keep Calm. Stay Wise. Be Kind’ and is, of course, in response to the COVID pandemic.”

So however difficult it may be to stay calm, be wise and be kind , it is definitely worth giving them a try . If nothing else , by being calm and helping someone will definitely make someone happier . And above all , I feel that if one is wise enough to observe social distancing , mask wearing and regular hand sanitising , one will at least be happy in knowing that one tried one’s best to keep CoVid away.

Last but not least , one should heed advice that is logical and scientific and have enough wisdom to know what is fake news and what is not .

So if you consciously decide to be happy , you will improve your general well being and increase your immunity .

I’m off now to meditate and be calm .

Smile and Ciao
Do we really need a Women’s Day ?

March 8, 2021

Hello 8th March.

Today is International Women’s day and I’m sure I’ll get flooded with a whole load of Happy Women’s Day messages.

But do we really need a day to celebrate women?

Do we need special events organised for women? Discounts at restaurants and spas? Special deals for women?

Will this really iron out the differences between men and women? Does downplaying our femininity make us more equal?

Will it make women more assertive and men more respectful and mindful of how they treat women?

Coming from a patriarchal family of strong women, I sometimes feel that feminism sometimes goes over the top .

Gender bias? Of course, it exists. In my family, women have a distinct advantage over men.

That is because, unlike many traditional families, Our girls are encouraged to do what they want to do (education, music, athletics) not because they are women and need empowerment but because they have the aptitude to do so.

Similarly the boys are encouraged to help around the house, even taking on major chores like laundry, grocery shopping and cooking .

In fact, in order to impress on the younger generation of males in our family that jobs are not determined by gender but by aptitude, Anna Shetty presented Wow Dinga with a kitchen set for his second birthday!

Of course, this hasn’t curbed his inherent passion for cars and hats and other ‘manly’ interests.

Believe it or not, there are inherent differences between men and women.

Believe it or not , there are inherent differences between men and women .

My two younger grandchildren are born just five weeks apart. Strangely enough they seem to be connected and share a strange bond- when one of them sneezes, you can be sure the other one is also coming down with something.

They both are wise beyond their years and have a distinct sense of humour that was apparent even when they were toddling out of infancy.

Both were given gender unspecific toys. But strangely enough, the boy prefers cars while the girl prefers books and dolls . So my own personal observation is that there are gender specific differences in terms of attitude.

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus

And let’s celebrate the differences rather than try to make both men and women into androgynous creatures in the name of feminism.

Ciao
Where have all the zebras gone ?

March 7, 2021

I woke up one morning to find that all the zebra crossings in my city had gone !

What happened ? Have people stopped crossing roads ?

Or have the PETA and SPCA and other Animal Rights activists finally put their foot ( or is it feet ?) down and ensured that humans can’t walk over zebras any more , even if they aren’t really live animals ?

When zebra crossings become sunny sides up .

I don’t know whose idea it was to paint the white stripes on the road into bright yellow and white.

Because that is what happened overnight the zebra crossings became yellow and white . Now we can’t call them zebra crossings any more.

So what do we call them? Sunny sides up? Because quite frankly, when I first saw them, the first thing I thought of was a crisply fried egg with a sunny, runny yolk.

If the animal activists had objected to the use of “Zebra Crossing”, surely the “Heritage Committee ” or perhaps the Urban Development department could have come up with another colour.

With political correctness being the order of the day, had the crossings been marked pink, it might have annoyed the feminists who probably thought it was making fun of women who can’t cross the road.

Or if they had painted it green, the greens would have objected because their movement was being mocked and run to the ground.

You get the drift don’t you. Colour has lost its colour so to speak, and has taken on different meanings. I mean no longer is a colour free of any associations or slights and every colour risks offending some group or the other.

So in that respect perhaps yellow is more neutral – it only signifies cowards and aren’t we all cowards when it comes to crossing the road when cars are whizzing past ?

Ostensibly, this is some kind of fluorescent paint that makes it easier for motorists to spot while driving at night .

But hello ! This crossing is painted outside a school! Not only is this a regular day school for girls but it is also run by an order of nuns whose convent is in the same premises. Thanks to the pandemic, this school ( like many others) has been closed during the pandemic but even if there are no children studying at school during night time, the nuns are definitely NOT crossing this road after sunset .

Doesn’t really matter if it’s Black & White

Lastly, our motorists are known to be particularly unmindful of pedestrians and actually speed up while approaching a cross road or pedestrian crossing so it doesn’t really matter if the crossings are painted black & white or yellow & white.

As a matter of fact, I’ve wondered why these were called zebra crossings in the first place. I know that zebras are black and white like these stripes on the road but it’s not meant for zebras to cross.

I remember reading a sign on a small road which said make way for the “squirrels to cross.”

But have you ever seen a ZEBRA cross the road?

Definitely, not, me!

Ciao