Nights in the mass lockdown due to COVID ’19 were starting to seem like the good old nights when I was a kid; going to bed at 11 and then snoring my sleep away to wake up early. A few months back and it was a totally different scene; for the world was not crippled by the pandemic and also, my day started at around midnight, and I was more of the nocturnal me. But this change due to the home-bound lockdown was a welcome one, things falling into place, things which brought peace, things called sleep.

The pandemic made me a tiny bit more self centric than I already was, and I considered the opportunity to be all alone in my well equipped tech-savvy room to be a god-sent, as I didn’t fear getting judged if I didn’t to go a party even if I was doing nothing and watching FRIENDS a zillionth time. Finally, it was a period of respite which I desperately wanted, to be with my things, to be with my personal circle of people, to be doing things I loved to do and the hobbies I wanted to nurture, all from the comfort of my room. But then, I have learnt to be careful about what I wish, as

“the universe and the almighty, does grant what you ask for, but sometimes in ways which you did not wish for”,

and these times are a perfect exhibit of my hypothetical, sensibly crippled, theory.

But however isolated you and your so called room is, a call from a dear friend can never keep you confined. The same happened about 4 months into mass exile and I heard from a friend, in the form of an invitation to come see and click pictures of his renovated music studio. It was as if time was in rewind and I was teleported back in time. We friends met, took an enormous lot of selfies in the recording room with them fancy lights, played a lot of songs on the Hi-Fi system, all topped up with a ton lot of laughter and then ice-cream to call it a day! It was on the same day that luck struck me twice and another mate, a pretty close one too, called me up right from my doorstep, waiting to take me on a pursuit for ice-cream. Yes, twice in the same couple of hours. He had been roaming for about an hour in search, no where to be found. Until he thought taking me along in my area was the best option.

Re-iterating the fact that you can never say no to a close friend, especially when you are in a jolly mood, I grabbed my mask, stepped downstairs and hopped on his bike, on the pursuit of happiness, a.k.a. Ice-cream. The ride started with some casual bitching about a mutual buddy, followed by relentless swearing and laughter. Let me tell you one more example of my hypothetical, sensibly crippled, theory;

“the more you search for something, the harder it is to find!”.

The fact that we roamed for about half an hour, searching for an ice-cream shop was a perfect testimonial for my belief.

And where there is a will, there is a way, no matter how bad the roads on the way are though. We spotted a convenience store which also sold ice-cream, on the other side of the road and the only way to reach there was by passing under a bridge where the road was similar to something you would find on the moon maybe, filled with crater-like potholes. We somehow managed to be the last customers of the shop where the keeper was no more interested in profits by making a sale, but was more keen to go back home as he was packing his steel tiffin with a dent into a rugged denim bag made from old worn out jeans.

But my focus, was no where around the ice-cream, or maybe not even in the breath I was taking! I had witnessed, one of those moments in life, where our views, our conscience and our take on life, is all put into perspective, all in one millisecond. I was no longer thinking about which variant of the chocolate bar I wanted to eat; rather I was thinking how lucky I was to have received an opportunity to capture into a frame in my camera, the sheer experience I had.

The hype created does not even come close to justifying the experience, but is a mere indexed representation of the events ahead. Passing by the crater from under the over-bridge, I already had my phone in my hand, as my shorts were too tight to accommodate a smartphone as I was carrying another gift from lockdown: fat. I quickly saw something unusual, and tried to capture it from a moving bike, but the technology in smartphones is not so advanced yet, to take brilliant pictures while on an accelerating medium. However, I cannot thank the tech-guys enough to not have figured this out yet, else I would not have done what I was about to, back then.

I screamed a little bit, and tapped on the shoulder of my friend riding the bike, maybe a little too hard. He immediately recognized that I spotted something, and stopped the vehicle, and in agony asked me what I saw this time! I did not bother answering, I stepped down and with my heart more anxious then ever, I uttered a few words, while stuttering, obviously!

Consent, has been a virtue I have learnt the hard way, and that will take an even bigger story to explain why, but I asked for consent to take a picture of the scene I saw. This time I was not asking for consent to a single person, or a dead flower, or a tree, or the sunset. This time it was a family. Consent from a family, of a grandmother adjusting her dupatta from her saree as I walked up, from a tired hawker, from his wife, from his brother, from his little toddler who was fast asleep. Consent, from the sheer brilliance of the scene, if I could take a picture and try capture it in a puny frame.

Under the bridge, about six months back, these dwellers had their homes, illegal as per the government, but homes, as per them. The homes were demolished as a first step when a new collector was appointed to the city, and since then, there are now iron sheets covering the vacant areas and the dwellers, sleeping inside the shade of the bridge. Amenities like electricity and water are a namesake for their families. Electricity, maybe appropriate to charge their phones, and water enough to have their feet cleaned once they were back from hawking.

The first thought that one might encounter after imagining this portrayal would be of sheer pain, agony and sadness. Well, that was not the case there, at least for the night I witnessed. The hawker was laid back on his lorry resting his head on a dusty pillow, his wife, his mother and another lady were seated behind the lorry. A kid, fast asleep on a bed without a mattress; which happens to be the most relaxed I have seen someone while sleeping! Two more kids and a young guy seated on the same bed while gazing into something. At first I was not sure what they were looking at. All this, taking place on the side of an open road, next to the iron plates fixed to keep the grounds secured, next to the doors and windows of the homes which were abolished, just some months back.

I have never gazed into the stars, the way this family was gazing into a box. A wooden box, used to store ice-cream on a lorry. This box, had a phone inside of it, where this whole family was hooked and watching a show. I did not bother asking or looking which show was it, because what I wanted to hear or see, was already in front of my eyes. There was laughter, smiles, happiness, a sense of completeness, all in the middle of what we may call as under or not at all privileged scene. That’s when it hit me, like a rock, right onto my senses, that happiness, is something that won’t ever need privilege.

From the comfort of my home and in my room, I never was this happy! This was something else! They had an air-conditioner from the nature, food from maybe whatever was around, water from the half an hour public supply and electricity enough to charge up that phone, but what they had was happiness, in abundance! It was a sheer delight to have this picture clicked and they were also overwhelmed and excited as I showed them the picture once I took it.

The sheer inquisition on the face of the lady who I suppose, was the hawkers wife while she watched the show sitting too far, trying to figure what was going on and trying to get clues hearing into the amplified sound from the ice-cream box around the phone while a vehicle roared next to them while passing by the street was simply mesmerizing. Never had I seen someone so engulfed in something, that the outside world just became non-existent. Just as the happiness I saw in the family while they laughed on a scene; the world around them was in chaos, but their happiness, was just as unaffected by everything else around.

Nothing mattered to this family! Not sitting under an open sky, not them mosquitoes biting them in the open, not the fact that they were sitting beside an open, narrow road where I wide-bodied car could easily scrape their arm off, not the fact that they were being clicked by a stranger. All they cared about was their laughter! The show fell into a funny scene and the hawker turned back and checked if every member was laughing their guts out, while being careful of his tone while laughing, as to not to wake the toddler up!

There are a million more interpretations for the picture and the scene yet the one I wish to offer is how a journey for a privilege: ‘Ice-Cream’ led me to something so significant, yet so simple! Made me realize that the privilege I was seeking, was as important as the letters ‘ueue’ in the word queue, and that happiness didn’t come from the ice-cream, but maybe came from the box.

Another stupid theory I believe in:

“If you keep seeking something enough, you will end up finding it, maybe in the most unexpected ways”

and

“the universe and the almighty, does grant what you ask for, but sometimes in ways which you did not wish for”

both the theories gathered their forces leading me to his exhibition, where I tried to seek for happiness in the ice-cream, and was served with happiness in a way I did not expect.

And among everything that is going around us, it is happiness, that can be found in the most unexpected of situations. It needs to be sought after, and

“to feel happy, is the highest level of privileges one can exhibit”.

I hope this turns out to be another stupid theory of mine. I would love to see this one come into action!