the real cost of happiness
as a single woman in her forties
I know I have been quiet.
Not by design.
I am in the middle of a very tumultuous website launch and I am passing out exhausted only to wake up and do it all over again
I have studied more lines of code than I care to examine - this past few days and the streak will continue for another foreseeable week at least.
today i write to tell you about two important things.
i’ll start with the simple one
if you are above 40s. and don’t actively wear reading glasses with blue light blocker film,
i urge you to buy yourself zero power computer glasses
you don’t a prescription for them
they will save your eyes dryness and itchiness
write back to thank me for saving your eyes later.
2.
the real reason for this post to you
if you have been following my substack, then you know, that i am single woman in her forties, committed to climate action, writing and committed to catching up on years of reading crammed into the next few months.
I have very few wants and needs in my day.
but the ones I hold on to are important to me.
like.
i eat twice.
and when I eat, i hate to eat alone.
firstly, its energy waste.
energy wasted in planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning…
when shared, becomes productive energy.
I fixed this at my home when I co-opted my long time helper
to have a morning chai (tea in milk) and lunch.
this way, i eat what I want and I get to share it with her
I can eat alone.
it’s never an issue.
the issue is this: unless one is mindful,
food can quickly become a selfish enterprise.
mostly because it’s such a basic human need fulfilled.
and it is easy to devolve into an animalistic “mine, my hunt, my precious” mode
—
to add to this, India is a classist society
And i belong to the upper class - both in class and standing
this is not lost on me
and i actively hate this knowledge.
food is a fundamental need and we are fundamentally animals
and i cannot feast when a fellow is hungry
—
yesterday was just bad overall
i had gone into a justified rage over work I had to pick up on
and we had gone to eat in a place that can only be described as a hole in hell
it was an all you can eat non veg buffet
the food was neither visually appetising
nor was the company that surrounded me
i felt like i had committed a crime of plenty
and that i had to eat lean for a week to pay my penance
—
as the day rolled into the evening and that into the night
i was in a cab - heading home
it was a one hour journey through city streets lined with the fanciest of restaurants, pubs, bars, road-side eateries
that screamed “come engorge in the city of vices”
cool, happening young ones flooded the night streets like food hungry vampires
spilling out into sidewalks and pavements
as my 21 year old cab-driver - Sachin from Raichur - navigated gingerly past them
this is where i supplicate to the Infinite Wisdom of the Cosmos
the justice of the plan
When I got into the cab, I wanted to never think of food
I was still struggling to hold down the atrocity that was lunch
but at that moment,
i saw my cab-driver
gaunt, under-fed, wide-eyed in the city - managing with his local tongue
doe-eye under the city headlights
and something in me switched on
I would drag him to dinner with me
this is not the first time I have taken someone of the service industry to share a meal
that happens pretty regularly
usually when I have an appetite
I felt my appetite open up
go from ‘no, god. no food for weeks’ to ‘i can have an idly’
we stopped at Srirangam Cafe - a tamil quick service all day- late night diner.
suddenly, it became about a tamilian, introducing a kannadiga child to tamil idly, dosa, sambar, kesari bath and tamil filter coffee
(if you are a south indian, you know the difference between both regions versions of the same menu. they are poles apart)
i felt this hunger open up as I ate happily with the boy - something that had eluded me all evening…
magic.
another realisation that came in last evening was that
at the age of forty, you see a twenty year old as a child you never birthed
they are the future
and they cannot look at the world through hungry, anxious eyes
they need to know that humanity exists
and that help will find them when they need it
and that they are never really alone.
As i left the diner, the boy called out to me
he held two bottles of purchased water
the pride on his face
and the dignity in his act
made me feel so happy and proud
that he understood the exchange
that he got it.
he wasn’t some charity case
he was a human, i shared a meal with
in the intersection of both our life journeys
he will make a good cabbie
he understands the metaphor of life