Where does joy live? A simple question that’s been stalking me for quite a while, demanding a response. Being habitually evasive by nature, at best I ignore it. But, it crops up unexpectedly at unexpected moments catching me unawares, it crops up now and then, time and again. This novel yet customary development is such that I can no longer ignore, not any more. It prompts me to ruminate, persuades me to meditate and urges me to contemplate. An exercise which I eventually learn to enjoy, ever so lightly ever so effortlessly, that I surprise myself. And so I continue with renewed vigour my search for joy. Searching frantically the address of joy, wanting to know after all where does joy reside.
One fine evening, when my clan retired and peace descended, truth resolved to whisper in my ears ‘You’re a mere mortal’. Suddenly, the world changed, realisation dawned. Joy is encountered in the most unexpected moments. Moments that not very long ago I took for granted. And yet, it need not necessarily be a soulful piece of music, that makes me nostalgic, or simple poignant poetry that makes me pensive or a beautiful art work that delights me or tender love making that satiates me or rhythmic dancing that sets my soul on fire or a silent prayer that showers serenity on my parched soul. These probable moments and much more enables me to encounter joy briefly, fleetingly and before long it melts in the ethers.
Joy lives in my memories, I decide. Memories that prompts me to confess. Memories that take a renewed form, be it a physical form of a Haiku poem, or an elusive article or better still a piece of art or cartoon. At times, I wonder why I write the way I write or draw the way I draw. I can trace back the events, people and places that build and nurtured me. The sounds, the smells, the tastes that transformed me. All these culminating into something creative, something magical, something that has a life of its own. Something called joy. The sugar rush I experience, when I breathe life in my piece of work, lasts for a couple of ticks and then it’s gone yet again, probably visiting others just as breathlessly. I assume joy is an incorrigible flirt. Not wanting a serious commitment.
So I look out others places I can probably catch hold of joy. I decide, joy lives in my labour. In the sweat that sprouts on my forehead and at times finds its way down the nape of my neck, or at other times in the depths of the cleavage of my bosom. Joy is the fine spray that waters my being, as I do gardening or cooking for my family. At the end of the day, joy appears stealthily and gently gathers me in its arms as it permits the hot showers to rejuvenate me.
Joy, I learn, is accepting people for what they are rather than what they should be. Joy is stripping the mask and permitting the self ‘to be’. Joy is listening to the voice that is constantly striving for attention but is muffled and strangulated. Joy is being true to self.
