Madhu's Musings

"That's the thing about unhappiness. All it takes is for something worse to come along, and you realize it was actually happiness after all." I was watching The Crown on Netflix the other day. Queen Elizabeth commented after President Kennedy's death when her mother asked about Jackie Kennedy's unhappiness. As a lifelong student of life, these words of Queen made a lasting impression on my mind. As human beings, aren't we generally programmed to keep taking things for granted until it's lost or taken away? We tend to believe unhappiness to be real and happiness to be some distant goal that needs to be achieved. Rarely we human beings are contended with what 'it is,' only to be shaken out of the slumber when that 'it is' is lost or gone forever. The words from the Queen were nothing extraordinary, and we all know such words of wisdom, but sometimes some words impact us more than others. Whenever I feel dissatisfied with anything or, for tha...

There are days when   I feel irritated with the ongoing lockdown and so wish for things to rewind to the normal. But then I remember my brother, who had cerebral palsy and is now no more with us. Not that I have ever forgotten my brother, who was four years elder to me, but somehow since the beginning of the lockdowns, I remember him more often. Every time my frustration gets better of me, his calm face flashes before my eyes. His sparkling eyes, despite having a significant disability and very little exposure to the outside world, come alive in my mind, and all of a sudden, I feel ashamed of me for being so fickle and impatient in these testing times. I remember him being restricted to the home, mostly to his bedroom as facilities for physically challenged people to move around outside the house were not very advanced in those times in India. But I fail to remember a single moment when he was unhappy or complained about it. The pure joy that emanated from his eyes never ...