Happiness adds and multiplies when you share it with others.

This quote would have been written on your school and college leaving autographs a thousand times and you would have also written this wonderful quote many a times in others’ autograph books and also quoted this in your writings.A very simple but magnificient truth indeed!Today, I came across my autograph book and even in the first page, this quote looked at me and smiled,written by my Tamil teacher.Just looking at this line sent me on a nostalgic trip.

My husband and I were a young couple, when this happened.I was reading a Readers’ Digest Issue and came across this wonderful snippet,where an elderly woman had recounted her experiences, in her endeavour to make others happy.
This elderly woman resolved one day that she would make atleast one person happy in a day.She thought to herself ,she says,that it would be a simple affair to make one person happy in a day.You may help an elderly person cross the road,you may pay compliment to a young girl on her simple dress,you may offer to carry a shopping basket for a person who needs that help and so on.This old woman would go to a shop with the idea of buying something for 20 $.But she would tell the sales girl at the shop,”My dear I want to buy a present for a friend.My budget is 5$only,please help me find something”The girl at the counter would go out of the way to show her many items costing 5$.The elderly woman would spend quite sometime in seeing many things at the shop and would finally buy something worth20$.She would invariably turn to the salesgirl who attended to her and tell her,”My dear,I wanted to buy some item worth 5$only.But you are such a fine sales woman,you have actually persuaded me to buy an item worth 20$!You are a n asset to this shop!”and the sales girl would beam with happiness.
The elderly woman would write a letter to the Shopmanager on reaching home,telling him how she had come to his shop wanting to buy an item worth 5$ and how the sales girl at the counter had managed to persuade her to buy an item worth 20$.She would compliment him on training fine sales personel who were too good.

My husband also read this article.We both were much impressed by the idea of making atleast one person happy in a day and thought that we would really be enriching our lives by doing so.
We took this message very seriously,determined that both of us would make atlest on person happy in a day not realizing that it was quite a task and on many a days you would have to really struggle to find someone whom you could make happy.
I and my husband decided that I would go about it my way and that he would search for a person tomake happy in his own way.If you think that may be we were competing with each other,yes ,my dear,you are right!

I overcame my shy nature and actually began to greet even total strangers on my morning walks with a smile and a ‘good morning’.The woman from whom I bought vegetables was surprised that I did not bargain with her anymore and that I acceped the veggies that she gave at her price with actually a smile on my face.My maid became emotional when I gave her a couple of sarees of mine with out her asking for them.I became a welcome visitor in my neighbours’ houses beause I always carried for them some chutney or a new recipe that I tried and also when I offered to run errands for them.
My husband stuffed chocolates in his pant pockets when he went out in the evenings and distributed chockies to the kids playing in the game area.Soon he got the name ‘chockie uncle’.He played with the kids and the mummies were very happy indeed!Evry night we exchanged notes on how far we both had succeeded in making anybody happy that day.

One fine morning I opened my flat door to collect the newspaper and I saw my neighbour Mr.Ramesh standing near the lift, waiting for teh lift to come down.My heart beat faster.Here was an opportunity early in the morning to bring a smile on a person’s face.
“Hello,Ramesh”said I.He looked at me and asked “Yes,Mrs.Narayanan?”
I said,”This blue shirt suits you.You look very nice in this shirt”.
He was stunned or shocked to be very precise.He looked at me in a funny manner that said,”What happened to this lady?”and got into the lift without looking at me.I was perplexed.I looked in the direction of his flat and there stood his wife,her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.I could feel my face reddening and turned to go inside my house,saw my dh looking at me with a mischievous smile on his lips and twinkle in his eyes.”Hm..”I snorted and went inside.

Both my dh and I would start together for our morning walks.My dh would walk fast and I walked very slowly.One day a neighbour lady,very friendly by nature came in the direction facing us.My dh greeted her and said, “Mrs.Raman, you look very smart in this salwar suit”.Mrs.Raman’s face bloomed with happiness ,and I could actually see my dh’s heart swelling with pride that he made her a happy person.
Days followed and Mrs.Raman would standd for a minute whenever she saw my dh and would exchange pleasant greetings.We had to go to our native place for a few days.We went and returned .On the very next day after our return,Mrs.Raman sought out my dh in our morning walk.
“Mr.Narayanan,what happened ?I did not see you all these days!”My dh replied saying how we had to go to our native place for a few days.
“My God,do you know how much I missed you!I saw you in the postman,in the courier fellow infact whomever I saw that person looked like you for me!I missed you so much!”said she.Now it was my husband’s turn to go red in the face may be with happiness or may be with embarrassment,I neve asked him till this day. He turned to look in my direction and I turned my face to hide the laughter that I contained with great difficulty.(my dear friends,this piece is written in a lighter vein.It is not my intention to cast aspersion on anyone)

One afternoon my niece rang me up and said that she had an appointment with her doctor that evening and that she did not know where to leave her son who was around eight years of age,since her husband was also out of station.I jumped and said,”No problem,my dear.Leave him in our house,I will take care of him and you can come here to pick him up when you finish meeting the doctor.”I could see my niece feeling very happy ,her son would be safe and that she could go to see the doctor without any hesittion or worry about him.
I knew that her son was a naughty sort but was not at all prepared for what happened when he was dropped in our house by his mother.My elder daughter who was of his age and my younger one who was an year younger, looked at him with much interest.Well, they had a new playmate!

The next one hour was a very challenging time for me to say the least.Balu, that is the boy’s name, jumped from one sofa to the other,the sofas were kept in two opposite sides of the big hall.When I told him that he should not jump on the sofa like that,he turned to the side table and began to examine the curios that were arranged there,minutely and dashed one on the floor to see whether it really broke.My heart bled,those cutglass pieces were expensive and I would never allow even my maid to dust them.
Quickly I collected the curios from the hall and put them in my cubboard.
Balu’s eyes darted here and there ,he opened the fridge,when I offered to get him what he wanted from the fridge,he looked at me sullenly,took out all the fruit and threw them on the floor.My elder dughter who could not bear the sight told him,”Balu,you are very naughty and my mummy may get angry with you”.That’s all he pounced on her,took her hair in a bunch and gave her a solid blow on her cheek.All this happened in a second and my daughter’s cheek reddened,she began to cry.
I comforted my daughter, holding her to me tightly and sat in the hall quietly,chanting some shlokas and praying to God that my niece should come fast to take her son home.Well she did that and I heaved a sigh of relief.I made a solemn vow to myself that babysitting tough children would never be my idea of making a mother happy,however tempting it may turn out to be.

These minor, irritating experiences did not deter us from our path of making some one happy in a day.We ontinued our efforts,may be we toned down a little .I still remember our trip to Tiruchendur and our meeting a little boy who made us happy when we took efforts to make him happy.We had finished darshan of Tiruchendur Murugan and were waiting for the taxi to pick us up,the driver having gone to the nearby teashop.My husband saw a small boy who came to us and begged for some money.He said that he had not eaten anything since morning.My husband took one look at him,took him by the hand to the nearby hotel.He made the boy sit down on a chair and told him to ask for whatever he wanted to eat.By this time a crowd had gathered round us, wanting to see the tamasha of a gentleman taking the beggarboy to a hotel to eat.This boy’s eyes bulged,he did not know what was happening,this was a new experience fo him.But the crowd cheered him,”Dey,eat whatever you want.Sir has told you to order what you want ,no?Come on eat your fill”
The boy’s eyes gleamed.He ordered dosa,idli,masal vadai and once the server brought the items one after the other,he gobbled on them.You should have seen the way he stuffed the items in his mouth,you would have shed tears.My husband told him,”Eat slowly,nobody will take these items from here .They are all for you only”My daughters were looking at him with round eyes that became rounder.
Once the boy finished eating my husband ordered for a parcel of idis and dosas for the boy’s mother and sister who were watching him from a distance.The boy collected the parcel from my husband and ran to his mother shouting all along,”Amma I have got tiifin for you Amma”The mother sat on the pavement opened the packet and she and her daughter shared the tiffin and also gave some to some kids standing nearby.The mother looked at my husband,folded her hands in namasthe and her eyes had misted and so were our eyes and the eyes of the people who stood watching this spectacle.

Some years passed by.Once my husbad went on an official trip to Hyderabad ,where he had organized a workshop and Seminar for his staff mainly consisting of his sales officers.
The seminar went off very well,I was told.That evening there was a party and I attended the party.The conversation took many turns and my husband told them about how making atleast one person happy in a day,could enrich our lives.There were lot of inputs from the people assembled there.Many felt that though the idea sounded good,it would be very difficult to put it in action.
One sales officer said,”Sir,we are busy people.When we don’t get enough time with our families what with our touring job,where is the question of looking for opportunities to make someone happy?That too every day! “My husband said,”Why,Malleswara Rao,if you can’t t make others happy,you can atleast make your wife feel very happy,every sigle day ,you know?”
MalleswaraRao ,who was a tall ,hefty typical Andhra man gave my husband a puzzled look and said,”How ,Sir?How can I make her happy every day?”
My husband said,”Why,as soon as she gets up in the morning, look at her in the eye and tell her,”My dear,you look so beautiful!How happy she will feel?”
Malleswara Rao thought for a minute and then said,”Oh ,no,Sir,not in the mornig,Sir!”and sat down.There was pindrop silence in the hall for a second and after that the party hall reverberated with the loud laughter of us all.I tried my level best to contain my laughter,my dear, but my laughter was the loudest.Big Laugh

 

My dear Viji,Padma,Saikripa,aishu,Sundarusha,Devika,Sabitha and AC,
Sorry that Iam not replying your fbs individually.Replying fbs to my posts has always been a treat for me.But now I am not able to sit in front of the blessed computer.Once I reach my place,I would like to write to every one of you individually.Now I thank you, my friends, from the bottom of my heart for your kind words of appreciation.
love
mithila kannan