Happyness - Blog Posts

"OGGI VORREI" , l'ultimo singolo dell'album "Amore Eterno" di Vito Rotolo, disponile ora su Youtube e Spotify.

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we all need whimsy at the moment

When was the last time you saw someone actually writing a letter?

Not application letters, I mean a nice, warm letter to a loved one

*Tring tring!* “POST! POST!!”

For some reason, the six year old me would get excited to hear the arrival of a post. I was always eager to receive letters. The kind old post man would pretend like all those letters or invitation cards or bills were actually addressed to me; he’d hand them to me with an impressed look in his face saying “Arey! Look how much letters you got today!”

As years passed I became busy in studies, career and never realised that the concept of sending or receiving a letter had disappeared from the back of my mind. Until one day.. One day, my husband showed me a video from the Malgudi Days series that I felt nostalgic about my younger, somewhat dumber self.

Thats when I realised that I’ve never seen a postman for a few years now. Especially after the rise of telephones and mobiles, no one ever sends snail-mails. Even when there’s the occasional bill or post, the postmen don’t have their usual smiles or kind words anymore. Being a postman has become just another job.

Here’s the episode from Malgudi Days for the curious :) The episode is in Hindi but the Youtube CC subs work fine

So when I watched that particular episode from Malgudi days, I was touched. It tells the story of a postman who knew everyone in that small village, he was friends with everyone, talked to everyone. He spoke encouraging words to the jobless ones who sent applications everyday and rejoiced with the family that had some good news from relatives of another another town, he shared the sadness of the ones whose loved ones were having a hard time in another village, in short he was an integral part of everyone’s life…

There’s one house/family in particular that the story focuses on. The postman has seen their daughter grow up from being a toddler to a girl ready to get married. He himself brought the letter that the groom’s side wanted to meet them and the good news that they have agreed for the marriage. He with all enthusiasm delivers the invitation cards all over the village and rejoices with the family on the wedding day.

As he’s about to leave the post office to partake in the wedding, a telegram arrives for that particular family. Now, in those times when there were no phones, a telegram almost always meant bad news, an accident or a death. The postman’s sixth sense tingles and he knows, delivering a letter of bad news will mean disaster for the wedding so he does the forbidden and opens the letter. As expected, a close relative has passed away.

The postman, withholds the news, not telling anybody until the next day. The family understands why he did not tell the news and their respect for him increases. They are grateful for him for not spoiling the wedding mood and the family do not report him.

The story was quite lovely and it was a trip down memory lane to see the old locations and houses. It certainly was fun — writing letters and receiving too! I’m excited to see new technology that the future holds and to look back at the past with nostalgia.

“Please! Just don’t take me in there!”

Ah! Dentists! Such wonderful people who help care for your teeth. But for some reason they are also the most scariest people to me.

I've had a history of visiting dentists which included a whole lot of pain and very poor results, which has made me so terrified of visiting them.

I remember one instance in particular from that terrifying period of my life which makes me burst out laughing even now.

I was in the 6th grade I think, one of my molars had turned bad and i had to undergo a root canal treatment - which of course is very painful and takes a long time. If something goes wrong the tooth maybe removed.

The clinic my mother took me to was quite small, a small waiting room and one bit wider cabin which was also an operating area and the consultation area.

I was so scared that even when the dentist just waved his hand in front my open mouth, I would anticipate pain even though he did nothing. Which is hilarious now that I think back. To my shock the affect of the local anesthetic that the dentist injected stopped working just a few minutes into the process!

I could do nothing but scream! Scream as if to raise demons from hell! As expected the adults did think I was being dramatic and tried to pacify me to no avail. A couple of nurses and my mother held me down and the dentist operated on my teeth among my intolerable screams and shrieks.

I can just imagine the reaction of the people in the waiting room, I'm pretty sure half of the kids waiting there peed their pants after hearing my screams - "what horrific experiments do they do in there?! Mama! I wanna go hoommee!" And "I promise I'll brush my teeth every day, twice a day or even thrice a day! Just don't take me in there!! Pleeeaasee!!"

As it went on, a couple came in with their son who was a lot younger than me. I was silent when they came in as the dentist was telling them something until a nurse directed them to a chair to talk. Once they sat, the dentist focused his attention back at me and started poking my teeth with one of thosr needle things...

I let out the most terrific scream that probably no one had ever heard before. The couple and their son had these scared expressions on their faces, the boy clutched his mother so tight looking at me with those scared little eyes.

I don't remember much after that but I'm pretty sure they picked another dentist. Of course the dentist, nurses and my mom were very upset at me. But honestly i still remember the pain.

Either way it was awkward, shameful and embarrassing at the time but now that I think of it... I can't help but laugh.

This incident always reminds me that whatever we go through may seem pretty hellish at the moment, but those things will always change or we can atleast make peace with it. Maybe someday whatever we thought was bad can make us laugh and brighten up our mood.

The day I met my doppelganger.. of sorts

I love shopping and one day me and my husband, as usual, went together to the local mall and did a lot of grocery shopping. Luckily that day the queue at the checkout was quite small and as we stood in one line we both noticed that the cashier looked just like me!

A short but thinner version of me to be exact but our facial features were so similar! She looked at me almost the same time we looked at her and we could see her surprise.

Me and her, we both started giggling at the same time, controlling so other people won’t think that we’re making fun of them.

I was really surprised and my hubby nicknamed her as my twin and from that day onwards no matter how rush her counter was, I’d checkout there itself.

Oddest thing was we both smiled at each other happily, but neither of us knew the other’s name — probably because it felt like we knew each other with just uttering “Hi” and “Thankyou, bye”.

For some reason it felt more comfortable just smiling. Then she left the job and we moved to another city. But still remembering those moments make me smile.

This has made me curious to see what kind of people I’ll meet in the future, whether they be friendly or not. It’ll be interesting none the less.

A collection of illustrations i did for another blog - http://medium.com/happyness A story of finding a doppelganger! It's light humor 😊