Daal Chawal Happiness

I made daal chawal today, one of the happiest moments of my day, probably week. I live alone and for the last few months my dinner has been something always related to protein. But there is a specific type of daal chawal that reminds me of my mom's cooking, it is not very flavorful, mostly just made with yellow lentil (tur dal) with the salt added to taste and eaten with white rice, you would add a teaspoon of ghee on top if you are feeling fancy, or mango pickle if moody.

I was excited about it throughout the day. Sitting across my desk — I could imagine the aroma of the daal, the whistle of the cooker and the taste of piping hot daal chawal morsel with a slight hint of ghee melting in my mouth. I couldn't stop being happy imagining it, I even pestered colleagues sitting beside me and telling them about my love for it. I rushed home and without even change of clothes entered kitchen to cook. I took out the rice and the lentil, washed it three times — three times is the charm, placed the rice in the cooker and let it cook while I ordered some pickle that I ran out of. I only have one cooker so daal will have to wait for its turn.

While daal and I were waiting, I just thought about my day. I thought I must be so naive to find such joy in daal chawal. It is such a small moment of happiness. While the thought of me being naive was still just floating in my head, I corrected myself,

"All happiness is small."

The effort might differ but the happiness is always small. All happiness is momentary. Wearing that sneaker that you finally bought after saving for months, is a moment of happiness, however it is still small, speck of dust amongst the vastness of time. The moment you put on that fancy new sneaker you will feel happy and elated but just few moments after it you will go on with your day thinking about hundreds of things you are managing, stressing about or figuring out. The dream car that you bought will make you happy, but soon you will start complaining about the fellow drivers on the road, honk at the traffic from your new car.

"So what is the effort between my daal chawal happiness and dream car happiness," I wondered.

Both of them are fleeting, and will make me happy only momentarily. Then why should anyone value one over another.

"Maybe it's the effort," I corrected myself.

True that some happiness comes after long, delayed and time consuming efforts and some as simply as coming home and rushing to kitchen to cook.

"Maybe both of them are equal," I thought.

Equal in terms of the capacity it has to give out joy, still our mind always working towards happiness that takes high efforts and makes us feel like we earned it because of the effort we put.

"Pssshhh" — the third whistle just went off making loud sound in my kitchen breaking my chain of thought. It was time to cook the daal. I declared to myself that I am not naive to find happiness in my daal chawal meal, instead it is our mind that keeps fooling us into comparing the happiness between different things in life. While I will still keep striving for all the big things, and chase the fleeting happiness after long enduring efforts, I will also enjoy the happiness of my daal chawal.