We just finished the first week of the new year; hope it went well for you.
The first day of the new year for me was quite eventful. I had a fundamental realisation about life, and I wish to share that with you today.
Whatever I am going to say next is no rocket science. Most of you already know about it. But I needed a reality check, and I got it in ample doses on that day.
Here’s what happened on the first day of 2023
I visited Shilparamam; an arts and crafts village in Hyderabad. The place also hosts some year-round cultural events and on that day my daughter was giving a Bharatanatyam performance along with her troupe.
The Shilparamam I went to is the one in Uppal, a lesser known cousin of the famous Shilparamam in the HiTech City area. The crowd profile at Uppal is significantly different due to its location and distance from the more affluent HiTech City area.
This was my first time there and these were my first impressions:
The queue for tickets at the venue was long; really long.
The entire place was jam-packed with hardly any space to walk.
The kids play area was packed to the brim.
The amphitheater for the dance performance was packed; I wasn’t sure if they had any interest in the actual dance.
The crowd at the limited food stalls was large, the food in the stalls was sparse, every round of mirchi bajji vanished within seconds.
A fake hillock turned into a waterfall was the main attraction and the path leading to it blocked by people attempting to take selfies.
The place was a perfect mess.
It took me a while to find my bearings, and then it hit me that something was extremely odd about the whole situation.
Perfect mess?
The situation was the perfect recipe for frayed nerves and raised tempers.
No one likes to be stuck with such crowds. But amidst all that crowd, what I could see was only one thing—smiling faces all around.
The fake waterfall had many selfie takers, but none of the smiles looked fake. I could sense genuine joy and innocent wonder in them.
The food stalls might have been empty, but whatever little was on offer was consumed with glee and no one hesitated to wait for the next round of mirchi bajji. And I found one little girl excitedly saying she’s waiting to have a masala dosa on her way back—the joyful anticipation in her face was a sight I cannot forget easily.
The packed amphitheatre had one of the most receptive crowds; they did not move from their seats while the performances were on and their applause was defeaning.
The play area was crowded, but again, I didn’t find a single unhappy child there. They enjoyed the pushing and jumping around while waiting for their turn on the slide while the parents gleefully clicked their pictures on their mobiles.
There was hardly any space to walk, but within those small pockets of space, on the grass, families spread bedsheets and had snacks they brought from home; some engaging their little ones with a ball and whatever toys they got with them.
There wasn’t a single unhappy face at the long queue at the entrance; there was only happiness all around.
That’s when the realisation struck me that these people were creating memorable experiences for themselves. This was a new world. A happy world that I hadn’t been exposed to in a really long time.
Contrast that with the countless Instagram posts on new year’s eve from celebrities and other folks from fancy foreign destinations, resorts, clubs and so on.
That world which we are so used to seeing online only represents a tiny fraction of our world. The real world is filled with those clicking selfies in front of our fake waterfall.
They have so little yet seem so happy
This was an eye-opening start to the new year for me. And this comes close on the heels of me declaring last week that I am going to have an unstoppable new year.
Those folks there—I already find them unstoppable in the way they are experiencing life. We must all try and be like them. As grateful human beings that find joy in little things.
Wishing you a happy new year once again!
Cheers!!!
Kartik Dayanand Boddapati
Do spread the word among your friends.