by Anupama Krishnakumar
Almost every night, the moment my head hits this utterly-comforting pillow of mine, I pull out my iPod from beneath it and embark on a very surreal and calming journey. After a long day of donning multiple roles and achieving multiple tasks, after a long day of unnerving challenges, music is the joy I look forward to – the ocean of calm that I choose to drown myself in. Invariably I do, yes, I drown, for I don’t know when my tired, droopy eyes close and when I fall asleep, for when I wake up in the middle of the night, stirred by a strange kind of intuition, I would realise that the iPod is still belting out song after song. Despite the fact that it is the same playlist that I listen to every night, I am surprised how I have never grown tired of it and how therapeutic this whole exercise is. The joy of falling asleep with some beautiful music buzzing around your head is a joy perhaps little, but by all means simply priceless.
So what precedes each night? A day that, as it unwinds, sees me in various roles that fit together like pieces of a puzzle. The puzzle called me. But this puzzle has one significantly large piece and if you look closely, you will see two little faces – my children. Parenting is an exhilarating and daunting exercise. This is a lesson that life repeatedly throws at you, each time you rush to decide (immaturely if I may so) that bringing up children is either exhilarating or daunting. Why would someone think like that, you may ask. The truth is children can, at a given point in time, drive you totally mad, with joy or rage, with what they do. Full of fallacies that human nature is, one tends to judge the whole parenting experience, in one way or the other, by one particular instance. But over time, I have come to realise that children are a treasure trove of little joys in life.
Today, I listened to my eight-year-old son play a new song in his piano class. He was learning to play the chords. As I waited outside, sitting on the steps leading to the room in which he was playing, I set aside my phone, leaned against the wall and listened in rapt attention. When I did, I felt the pure joy of listening to him play a beautiful little part of a symphony. The way he played the piece touched me in a very delicate sort of way and I am guessing it’s the pride that I felt as a mother that added to the joy I experienced, making it a moment to cherish. And for a brief while, I reflected, ‘Oh my, this little boy of mine, he has grown up so much!’
Children grow up fast, way too fast, actually. Their years of infancy and toddlerhood is all but a blur as years go by. Yes, photographs and videos and the little notes that I made during my son’s initial years are all keys to unlock the gates to a whole world of memories but certain things about childhood just escape your capacity to remember and relish. And that may be because these joys are what you experience by living in that moment. They can’t be felt again by committing them to memory; like the joy that the innocence of childhood brings. My two-year-old daughter is the reason why I relive that experience all over again. How many instances there are to say how she fills my days with little joys! Sample this one: yesterday, we got her a cute little whistling engine that moves back and forth on a linear track. The first time she saw it move, she exhibited a joy so uninhibited, so pure, defined by unadulterated laughter, shouts of excitement, clapping of hands and the mouthing of the oft-repeated phrase, ‘Amma, look, amma!’ I so enjoyed this moment with her, watching her feel overjoyed – the closest I think I have come to experiencing joy of a divine nature.
And sometimes, I think I have become a child too, desiring things like a child would. As people close to me would know, I desire stationery like a soul mate. My heart melts when I see well-designed notebooks in particular. During times when I have felt like celebrating, when I have felt like pampering myself, I have done and still do notebook shopping. And like a true stationery freak, I am the notebook collector – pulling out the ones in my painstakingly-built collection, every now and then, and running my fingers over them fondly, admiring their finesse and artistic spirit. The joy that this practice brings is child-like but so uplifting. In fact, creativity in any form fills me with happiness. Be it good design or art or soulful music or a well-written sentence or a creative turn of phrase; they give me the kind of joy that touches the soul.
That’s not all. An ice-cream in the night after the kids have fallen asleep, a lazy chat with mom over the phone, a giggle exchanged with the husband over a silly meme, a once-in-a-while effort to sit up late into the night, feeling inspired to write up a piece such as this…aren’t there enough little joys to enjoy in life? Little joys that make life truly worth living? Yes, of course.
So while night has fallen and the world outside my window is fast asleep and I type away, driven and inspired, joyfully indulging the writer in me, the question comes back to me: What’s life without you, little joys?
