Happy Things

In my efforts to get my child understand the rights and wrongs, I have sometimes delivered the homilies in a matter-of-fact manner and at times found it better to say it through incidents. But that was when Ponnu was little. As she grew up, the latter would not quite work.

The newspapers are rife with unfortunate incidents and I would constantly ask Ponnu whether she had read them. When sad stories were told to me or I was privy to some in my workplace, I would mention them to Ponnu. Soon the `sad’ stories became a daily evening affair. One day Ponnu asked me, “Why do you say something sad that has happened with someone in office or what a colleague says over here?” I said that was because I was quite upset about it. “Can we do something towards that,” was her query. Not quite, I said. “Then leave it Ma. Don’t come and tell dad and me these sad stories. Let us talk about something nice.” In my defense I said, “You know, you can’t escape sad things in life.” Pat was the reply. “Of course, I can’t. But I don’t think we should be speaking about other people's sad stories everyday at home.”

At another time, I told Ponnu, I was planning to write a story. “Please write happy stories, Ma,” she urged. Now, why was that, I wondered aloud. “You know, it is so easy to get people to feel sad. The challenge is to make people happy. That is what I think you should be writing.” A split second later, she added, “Hope I did not sound rude now.” Of course not, I reassured her. I thought over what she had said. It is a task to be happy and only talk of happy things. But I accepted that challenge.