A souvenir called Happiness.

Shatakshi Mohan
Nov 3 · 3 min read

It’s a cool Diwali morning and I have my cousins as well as my adorable niece and nephews over to spend the festival together. I see a little boy playing with the dogs outside. He is tumbling and giggling, and soon all the children in our family join him as well.

That afternoon we all decide to go for a trek . The little boy comes along too. I ask him his name. ‘Junior,’ he replies with a grin.

While walking I get to know him a bit. Junior is five. His father works for my friend and Junior and his siblings live on the estate. I ask him how he had celebrated Diwali . He happily chatters, ‘I watched cartoons and ate dal roti .’ We keep walking and Junior is running back and forth at lightning speed till we stop for lunch at a quaint café.

I see him at the far end of the table; he is animatedly chatting with the other children and showing them a little toy that he has been carrying in his pocket. It’s a tiny plastic Transformers toy.

One of the kids accidentally snaps something off the figure. There is an uneasy silence. I don’t know if Junior, a boy who has so little, will cry; I don’t even know if this is the only toy he possesses.

This little boy surprises me. He looks at his broken toy and says, ‘I have the best super glue at my house, I will fix it and anyway soon I am also getting a remote control car.’ I ask him who is giving him the car but he just shakes his head, gives me a loopy grin and says, ‘It is a surprise. I will have it next week.’

We are going to the bowling alley and we persuade Junior to come with us. On the way, the kids are playing on their phones. They have an app that can take your picture and make you look fat, sprout a funny moustache, warp your face and when they show Junior this; he asks a single question that I will never forget: ‘Can you make me look fair?’

Today, Junior came over. The kids have bought presents for him. They give him a massive Transformer toy that talks, a remote control helicopter and a watch. He can’t believe his eyes. He keeps taking each toy and running to the kitchen to show his father and he wraps his arms around me in a warm hug.

We go down to the pool and as everyone is jumping in, I finally ask him, ‘Junior you said you were getting a remote control car, when will it come? ‘ He nods and tells me, ‘It is coming but it is delayed.’ I probe a bit further, ‘Who is bringing it for you?’ He looks at me for a moment, laughs and says, ‘No one.’

Junior was never getting a remote control car but he has such a generous spirit that he shrugged away his despondency and made up a story about super glue and a remote control present so that the other kids would stop feeling guilt-ridden that they had broken his toy.

Disappointment did hit him, like it hits all of us, but he pushed it aside in the same manner of waving away an annoying fly so that he could continue being happy.

We try to chase happiness by buying things – cars, homes, friendships, gadgets – but a five-year-old boy who never stops smiling taught me that happiness is not a pursuit or a purchase, it’s simply a way of being.

    Shatakshi Mohan

    Written by

    Carb lover. Fridge Magnet. Unicorn whisperer. Serial relaxer. Pathological exaggerator.