The Joy of Little Things
It’s been 10 years since I graduated from the grand grand school at Bijapura. I have written a lot about my school. It’s what Paneer Butter Masala(PBM) is when you are dining out. Has to come up once in a while. So in this dreary lockdown, where I am tired of my own mediocre culinary skills I thought, why not indulge in some Paneer Butter Masala(PBM)? In this one I try to make sense of what makes PBM so special. 🤔
It was the June of 2003. I was sitting on a steel cot, watching my dad meticulously write H3798 on every piece of uniform I owned, while my mum was “arranging” my bed. The seniors who called themselves “brothers” came in and invited me to the hockey match they were going to. Now, I knew nothing about hockey. But, I was excited at the prospect of learning this new game. I had a brand new hockey stick, to boot. One of the “brothers” helped me with my socks and another with my shoe laces. In a jiffy, I was on my way to my first game. While much of the game remains a cloudy memory, I remember at one point, one of the “brothers” stripped out a piece of blue cloth from his hockey stick’s grip, tied it to the end of his stick and then started waving with much fervour. The blue was the color of my team and that stuck with me. I had my own team to cheer. My own team not just in hockey, but in football, volleyball, basketball and cricket!⚽️
As I came back from the game that day, unprepared for the emotions that were going to hit me, I saw my parents waiting for me. An hour later they left and I was on my own in a strange place with its own rules. That night, as the emotions got the better of me I searched for things to find solace in and found comfort in my band of brothers and the prospect of cheering for my team the next day. Thus, began my journey in Sainik School, Bijapur(SSBJ) 🏫.
Over the next 7 years, looking for the next pocket of happiness became a cheat-code. These peaks of happiness or these dopamine hits spurred me and everyone around me, seldom making us miss our families. Looking back, most of it seems pretty mundane now. But that’s the beauty of simpler times I guess. The simple joys are and were never in short supply.
Finding a extra cookie from the tray of cookies that arrived in the wee hours. Having an easy PT session. Sneaking to the barracks between the school break to snack on some sweets. Getting the coveted poster from a Sportstar magazine. Being permitted to watch cricket on Doordarshan. Finding a tumbler to drink tea! Putting in the extra yards in the football game, because they were serving buffet biryani in the dinner later that night. Finding that something extra for dinner. The moment when the clock stuck 11PM and the prefect shouted “move”. Saturday movie screenings at the school auditorium. Indulging in cooked up stories on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Late night banter in the basketball court. There was always something. Even the worst of the days — Thursday, came with refreshments!
Over the years it is this art of finding joys in little things that I seem to have lost. Not because I stopped liking simple things, but because there was always that next big trip or the next big thing to try. But thanks to the lock down, these big things are out of the window(literally too 😄 ). So as I look back at the times in SSBJ, I want to go back and find inspiration in the joy of little things. And this Chai I am now drinking seems to be shouting, “look no further”! 😃
