How much does Happiness weigh?

On an otherwise dull Friday evening, this impromptu question by a friend got me thinking for a while. Can happiness be measured? My mind immediately, without a second thought, came back with a "YES" and started making quick notes on what all makes me happy? How much of something makes me happy?

So here goes the list -

• 1 medium French Fries (Because its always food first :D)
• An evening spent in Beach.
• An hour long phone call with a dear friend after ages.
• An all-nighter at home with my Girls Gumbal (Remember the night before R's Wedding)
• Solving (read, trying to solve) the Crossword Puzzle in Vaaramalar (its a weekly supplement of a Tamil Daily)
• First sprouts of the seeds sown
• Late night movie watching at home, during weekends
• Meeting up someone I know all of a sudden in a random place. Gosh! Every time I met someone like this, I would be beaming the whole day for no reason.
• A run along the 200ft road stretch!
• One night's peaceful sleep
• Sunrise!
• Crescent & Full moon
• Petrichor - the smell of soil from the first rain
• Balloon shooting at Bessy
• Staring at the horizon from the peak of a mountain / hill after a trek / run.
• Bread Omlette from Metro Juice Park
• A good run with the CTC folks.

This post that stayed in my draft for 2 long years. But even now, most of the above still continue to give me happiness. A few more that I'd add on now -

• The smile of Athiboy
• Vacation trips with a girlfriend
• Harvesting home grown food. 
• Late-night conversations with the brother man. (Remember the nights we'd spent talking about random things when Bul didn't let us sleep)
• Reading while eating
• Gulab Jamun mix
• Daily calls with Appa
• Sleeping baby
• Communicating with Paati through actions and expressions, as she has trouble hearing clearly.

Most of my current list revolves around family, because just like everyone I'm also staying home in this COVID-19 Lockdown. 

This list might need updation over time, but the items mentioned here would surely continue to make me happy anytime. 

5 May 2025 - Made this post see the light of the day by posting it in the blog after 5 (or rather 7, I suppose) long years of being the draft. The list is still very valid. 

Musings of my mind - II

There are some things that I observe around me and which have quite an impact on me, and I believe most of you reading this might agree with me. 

One: 

Everyone in this world need some kind of motivation / appreciation / recognition for their efforts, just like how we expect recognition for our efforts in work / office. Unless such appreciation or recognition keep coming, people are bound to get frustrated and annoyed quite often. This applies to families as well. 

I feel, we generally take family for granted for things that are being done for us. If somebody in our family does something for us, how often have we taken time to appreciate it? Almost never right? Why do we deny them that? What do we lose in spending a few minutes to let them know what their work means to you? If not daily, atleast once in a while, we can surely do this. It'd instantly make them happy and also make them feel important. 

For example, when someone takes an effort to cook something new, even though it's not something you like, or that it didn't taste the way you like, before you comment on how it is, please take a moment to appreciate the effort they put in. That'd instantly boost them up. Later on, you can let them know what you didn't like. Also, the key is in the way you communicate it to them. I'd recommend putting it out as an improvement point, rather than an outright negative comment. Eg. You could use phrases like, "so-and-so could have been better", instead of an outright "I don't like it". This will surely create a positive impact on the recipient. 

Two:

The world is filled with people who are so different from each other. Each one has a certain way of doing things, and most often it may not be the same way that you'd do it or like it to be done. The end results, however, are going to be the same. 

When we need a work to be done by someone, why are we so persistent that it has to be done the way we do it? Once we delegate a work to somebody, we keep making corrections to their approach to the extent that drives the other person to think why they agreed to do that work in the first place, and the next time they wouldn't bother asking if they could help you and you'd be left doing all the work yourself. Further, you also lose the right to constantly tell that all the work is done only by you and nobody is helping out. Help was offered, but you were only too stubborn to accept it the way it came. 

So, whenever you need help, ask for it and mention the key things to be done or the result you need. Learn not to micro manage and accept the work as it gets done. This way the person delegating can relax and the person who does the work would also feel good that they were able contribute something in the chores. 

Have any of you faced these situations? If so, do let me know your suggestions on how else these things can be handled in a better way.

Whatsapp Forward Parithabangal

Have you ever set up a Whatsapp Account for your parents and had them come back to you a week later saying their phone has become slow?

I have. Every single week, my dad comes back to me saying his mobile has become very slow and is getting drained out of battery every other hour.

No prizes for guessing what the reason is. Yes, it is because of the huge loads & loads of data and videos and pictures that are being circulated in Whatsapp Groups and Chats which get downloaded on to his mobile & apparently reduces its speed.

It is seriously startling to see the amount of unwanted, irrelevant, running-to-multiple-pages forward messages being shared in Whatsapp.

You install Whatsapp for, say, your dad or mom. Once in, there is a Family Group, their work group, a neighbours group, old friends group, ex-colleagues group, extended family group, people of the same town group, etc etc. and in most cases, more than half of the members are common in all these groups i.e., a friend may be both in old friends group, ex-colleagues group, people of the same town group etc..Phew!! Enna koduma sir idhu!!

Above all, the messages in these groups are either birthday or anniversary wishes or, forward messages. There is almost never a proper conversation happening in these groups. When it comes to forward messages, I have observed the following types -

One, which comes with the tagline, Share it if you are a Tamilian, Share it if you are an Indian, Share it if you are Human, etc. -  What the hell is this? If I don't share it, am I not an Indian or what?!

Two, Share this to 10 people within 10 seconds and your wish will be fulfilled, else bad luck will be bestowed upon you - Like seriously people?!

Three, which goes something like, "Don't be selfish and share it with everybody so that all of the people are benefited" - First of all, I am not sure about the authenticity of your message and I have nothing at all to benefit from this message, then why should I forward it?

My dad (and a lot more people of his age) having received all these kind of messages, painstakingly reads through and believing it to be true, forwards to the rest of their contacts / groups. And now somebody who has received this message from my dad, will again start forwarding it and it keeps landing into my dad's Whatsapp again and again.. One vicious cycle this is!

These messages are not necessarily only text messages, they can be images as well videos. Things only get worse with images and videos as they get downloaded into the mobile and eat up the storage space. So, by the end of one week, I see my dad's phone literally flashing Low Storage Space, please do a Disk Cleanup. And when I go into the gallery, I see 300 videos and 3899 images under the Whatsapp folder. My mind voice be like "Ipdilam irundha phone en slow aagama irukum?"

After all the clean up, and exiting him all the unwanted groups, I give a 15-minute gyaan to my dad asking him no to download any videos or messages in the group. But the next week again, every thing goes back to square one. My dad is added back to all those groups from which I had removed him and the whole mobile is about to crash due to lack of storage space

Tired with having to delete every single conversation manually, this time, I decide to uninstall Whatsapp and re-install it. While re-installing it, I consciously skip the restore, so that all the old conversations are not coming up again. My Whatsapp is as good as new now, with zero data. The only downside to this is, I may lose out on some valuable data, if any, that had been shared earlier. But that's fine. I can always go back to the person who sent and ask them to send it again.


Believe me people, 99% of the content that is getting circulated as forward messages in Whatsapp is untrue and fake. Please and pretty please, THINK before you forward and STOP forwarding those messages!

~~End of rant~~

P.S.: If you are someone who's been sending me forward messages, please note that I may use the block chat option anytime. I'm seriously frustrated !

Chaar Cheezhen!

Four Things - About me and my wishes!

1. I can doze off under the hot sun. Literally. Whenever I wait under the sun for somebody to pick me up while going out during the day, be it for a movie or anything else, I always, every single time, feel a little sleepy, even when I had had a sound sleep the previous night! Not sure if it is general human tendency or not, but I tend to feel drowsy when I am waiting or idle. I always love to have my day fully packed and bustling with activity, because empty days bring along laziness with it, which is something I am not very fond off. 

2. People. People are my best medicine. If you find me sad or lost in thought, just bring a couple of people around and I would brighten up enthusiasm instantly. I love being surrounded by people. Its boosts me like anything. This doesn't mean that I need people around me to talk to all the time. I can be alone and still be happy looking at other people talking amongst themselves. My requirement is just to have people in my vision. I went on to a place called George Everest in Mussorrie. It was a viewpoint, but I couldn't see one single tourist soul around there. The view was brilliant, but I felt something missing there. In my opinion, even the most stunning views gain their charm only when people are around to witness it. 

3. Mumbai, the city that never sleeps. This has been my dream city. I have read, heard and seen so much about this city, the Marine Drive, the Local Trains, The Arabian Sea and lot more. And after so much of listening, reading and seeing, I am dying to go to this city. I love Mumbai for the way it is, always busy and running. I have been wanting to go to this city for a long long time, but never got the chance yet. Every single New Year, for the past 8 years, I have been wishing without fail, to make a visit to this city. Hope I get a chance atleast this year.

4. Beaches, Sunrise and Sunset are a part & parcel of my life. One of the biggest reasons why I love Chennai is because of the Beach, especially the Thiruvanmyur one. If you know me or follow me in Insta, you should by know my obsession for sunrise and sunsets (Because most of the pictures in it are of sunsets/ sunrises) 

P.S.: I had wanted to write about 5 things, but never really got around in identifying the fifth trait, so finished it off with four. 

Musings of a confused mind -_-

Too much of time to kill during the commute to office makes me ponder upon random topics. So one fine day, I re-bump into this one thing which has been on my mind for quite long time.


How easily our, or rather my, minds becomes prey to opinions or comments about other people and forms an opinion by itself. Whatever someone might tell you about somebody seriously impacts your mind, which thereby impacts the way you interact with them.It is not that you judge them but still, there is this small preconceived notion / opinion about them in your mind based on what you have heard.


I've personally felt this quite a few times. In some cases, even before I've actually met a person, I've a thing about them running on my mind. How? Thanks to my ears and the people I am surrounded by. More often than not, we engage in conversations where we may come across something being told about someone whom the speaker might know, but the listener(s) don't. These kind of conversations are unavoidable. However, my point here is, sometimes they do affect my mind and create this preconceived notion about those unknown people, which I feel ain't the right thing to do. See the contradiction here, my mind knows it isn't the right thing to do, but it still does go on and do it. -_-


Two specific instances which have made me ponder so much over this topic are -


Instance 1: There was this distant relation whom I have never met, but have heard quite a lot about him from my aunt, like, how he usually had his way of getting things done and how dominating he was. Listening to all this, made my mind conjure up the term dominator whenever I hear his name. And one fine day, when I finally had a chance to meet him, I found out that he was anything but a dominator. But then, even after knowing that he isn't anything like what I thought him to be, my mind still doesn't let go off its initial thoughts.



Instance 2: This is quite similar to the first one, exception being, here I've met this person and talked and felt her to be good. And then along came a good friend who just had to say she wasn't as sweet as she was the first time I talked to her. I don't quite know what made him say that, but my poor mind had already fallen prey to that comment / opinion and started its own chain of thoughts. Weird I say. Now every time I see her, I stay away because I feel guilty about my own mind and its thoughts.


I wonder if the problem is just with me or does this happen to everyone? Is there any way out of this?