My penchant for sad stuff

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A friend called to wish me for my birthday. I informed him it was not my birthday. In his phone book, this information was stored. He did the same last year too. Out of sheer courtesy I asked for his birth date. He said "I am a birthday boy every day." I could hear the aliveness in his voice. He is above fifty, has had his shares of ups and downs professionally n personally. He has married, divorced and re married.He looks after his family and new family and extended family. He meets his friends everyday and he enjoys life. One can get his enthusiasm for living life every moment and that is so inspiring. On my birthday I am most embarassed about friends and family wishing me. I wish to treat it like a normal day without the attention on me. Don't ask me how I treat a normal day.

When we sound happy, people are supposed to enjoy and talk to us. Here I feel friends have a tendency to do the oposite. I am sure when I am sad or have a sad story to share, there is a crowd of listeners. I will have lots of shoulders to cry but if I am happy and want to celebrate, I don't think any friend will come out for a drink. Even in the newspapers, I tend to read the bad news first. I don't even know if the newspapers carry any good news. I know relatives who read the obituary column the first thing in the morning. On asking why, an Aunt said it helps her plan her day and clothes accordingly. So if she has to visit the mourning family for the prayer meet, she plans her day around that area and those timings.

In most Indian communities, white is the colour for mourning. In all of Hinduism, black is not a favoured colour for clothes and is avoided for mourning. Wearing black clothes is a very recent concept in India. Yesteryear actresses never wore black to public functions. India has a wide variety of colours. Indian women can carry most colours beautifully. The Sari is an amazing cloth/ garment which can have an eclectic mix of colours. Our tribes wear hand woven clothes in bright colours. On a recent trip to Gujarat, I noticed how women were switching from traditional cotton bandhnis to synthetic saris. The colours were bright neverthless. Our weather is not too conducive to synthetic fabrics but the ease of convenience is too much to ignore.

Coming back to sad stories which I am so good at sharing, if someone messages me 'Call back urgent', I think of only very bad things. Its a relief when I get to know that he just wanted some information.That which seems mundane to me is urgent and important to someone and I need to get that.Reading the word 'Urgent' puts me on emergency mode. If I see a call coming from school, I am concerned about my child's health. Am I living or just waiting for a calamity to strike? May be if I was a newspaper reporter, I would be smelling for news on every call which sounded urgent. Even a reporter does not want bad to happen for a good story. How we rejoice in other people's stories good or bad. It can be a topic of conversation at the next kitty party or dinner at friends. It can be given our interpretations and we can even take a moral stand on the matter. I get irritated when the family discusses politics on the sunday lunch. Each one actually taking a stand for the party they vote for and being vehement about pointing the bad in other parties. We have nothing to discuss except other people's lives/ nations/ political parties/ Godmen. We never talk about ourselves, our feelings, our lives, our joys, our fears with our family or friends at the dinner table. Is anyone listening?



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