Contentment..a lovely feeling

I have wondered from time to time what contentment would feel like?, you know its like trying to define your Utopia, or your idea of it. 

 

Being from one of middle class traditional hindu families, I have never celebrated festivals like Id or Christmas, not even socially have I got to celebrate these, as my circle of friends which was almost non existent did not celebrate them either. So holidays to these festivals was spent at  home doing nothing, or just doing the left out errands. This time Christmas was slightly different.

 

One of my cousins had come down to India, from the US. He is one of the people whom I have been very close to, he lived with us for about an year, and also as kids we have always bonded, over games and the innumerable fights we have had. Anyways, he had come down, and we decided to host a get together party for him and his wife at our house. It was supposed to be just our first relatives, all my father’s brothers and sisters and their families. With few people out on their annual vacation, the count had come down to around 20 of us. Me being a little too held up at work, was kind of not in the party mood.

 

People started trickling in from morning, even though the plan was to meet for lunch. Its fun talking to my uncles, and aunts, I have always loved my conversations with them, its always filled with laughter. There is something amazing about a loud laughter coming from old people, its like telling us whats wrong with you, when we after seeing so many ups and downs in life can laugh our hearts out, why can’t you young ones do it.  There is this is mystical feel to the laughter, when it is around people you care, you begin to get sucked into it. So the grumpy me kind of eased into the day, with chuckles and by mid day I was laughing out loud.

 

Food is always a big thing in our households, as most of us do enjoy eating. You can be eating a common dish, something you eat everyday, but you put some 20 laughing mouths in a hall, and feed them something even ordinary, it begins to taste heavenly. And when it comes to good food, in such an environment, the feeling you get is just truly unexplainable. So there I was eating an extra helping out of my plate, a dish which I generally do not prefer, feeling the taste on my tongue. As I was looking at people whom I have hated and loved at times, with kids around enjoying one of the odd occasions when they get to be pampered by us, lunch kind of just moved up a couple of notches in my view.

 

The evening too ended up being an open court, for hot topics, ranging from religions beliefs, to finance, to even gender bias and divide. Of course nowadays none of the discussions at my house can end without bringing up the topic of my marriage, or the idea of possible suggestions for a suitable bride. Anyways it so happened that this day, it kind of hardly bothered me.

 

At the end of that day, when I went to bed, I had a thought in my head, how amazing contentment feels like.