Diary of a Little Woman | Thank god for gratitude

January 17

Dear Diary,

Did you know there is something called the World Gratitude Week?

By the looks of it, all 365 days in the calendar seem to have something associated with it.

Last week, Poonguzhali Akka was telling Shanky and me about World Towel Day. It seems there’s a famous sci-fi book called Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which says something about how your towel will rescue you when the world is coming to an end. On World Towel Day, Varun Anna and his hostel boys would go to college in a towel! Imagine that.

I asked Poonguzhali Akka whether any girls participated in the towel-ry (like revelry. I’m getting gooood at wordplay, no?). Akka rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah right! This is a strange country, Miss Nila. Men wearing loincloths are worshipped, but if a woman dares bare her breasts, they are chopped off.” I wanted to ask her more about the breast-chopping thing, it sounds scary. But she immediately changed the topic to how her cousin’s college has introduced detailed instructions on dress code — length of sleeve, length of kurta, type of fit etc. “Soon we’ll all be wearing burqas like our sisters across the border,” Akka said. She was kidding but it kinda seems probable. Brrrr!

Back to World Gratitude Week. Sheela Miss, our substitue English teacher, gave us a small talk about the magic of ‘Thank You’. She narrated a story about a middle-school teacher in America who had conducted an activity in her class where her students had to write anonymous thank-you notes for their classmates. 30 years later, at a class reunion, one of the students shared a story about how a few years ago his wife had died in an accident and immediately after he was fired from work. He was feeling miserable about life and was on the verge of killing himself when he discovered a box in his closet which contained all the thank-you notes from 30 years ago. That moment changed his life. “If I am alive today, it’s because of those 15 notes in that little box.”

Sheela Miss then conducted the same exercise in our class. We thought it would be easy-peasy until we realised that we had to write a little note for ALL our classmates! Yeah! Vikram and his grunty gang also! None of us wanted to disappoint Sheela Miss though, she’s such a sweet, angelic thing. So we wrote. I was very tempted to be sarcastic to Vikram but somehow I controlled myself and wrote. “Dear Vikram, Thank you for cracking jokes when science class gets extra boring. Even if your jokes are silly sometimes, I always laugh for them. So thank you.”

Sheela Miss was right. It DOES feel good when you thank someone for something you didn’t even realise you were thankful for in the first place. The rest of the notes were easy-peasy. My longest note was for Sandy. I realised today that I actually like him a bit more than Poo and Rads. They’ll disown me if they read this! Poo will also get the rumour mill going about how I have a crush on Sandy. Wait, maybe I do! What’s a crush anyway. Must ask Poonguzhali Akka.

After the activity, Sheela Miss asked us to spend the whole week saying Thank Yous to people we were grateful to. When Amma got back from office, I gave her a TIIIIIIGHTTTTTT hug and presented her a card with a list of the various little things that I was thankful for — for teaching me to cycle, for making pizzas every Sunday, for adding a piece of chocolate to my weekly cup of coffee, for surprise trips to Chaitanya Chaats, and so many more points.

Amma smiled and smiled and didn’t stop smiling. Appa also received a similar card and so did Shanky. Immediate return gift: Family dinner at the new Chinese place on MG Road.

Shanky also gifted me. Three Snickers from his secret stash.

Whoops! It’s almost midnight. More progress on World Gratitude Week coming up.

Yours thankfully

Nila.

Tuesday

Today, I gave Govi Thatha a picture of him sitting next to the school gate, and a bunch of naughty kids trying to jump over the gate. Thatha smiled and kissed me on the forehead. “This is the first gift I have ever received from a student, Nila Kutti. I’m going to frame it and put it on my living room wall.” The bell rang just then so I kissed his cheek and ran to class, making a silent promise to spend more time with Govi Thatha.

Also made colourful origami cranes for all the ayahs. Usha ayah almost started crying when she saw the pink crane I had made for her with her name written on the wings.

Wednesday

This day has been all about thanking teachers.

Four-line rhymes for all of them. Sandy and I composed these together. They were warm, smart, and funny, and the teachers loved them. Also, I’m afraid I might have a crush on Sandy after all.

Thursday

Thank thy neighbours.

Shanky and I baked a massive batch of chocolate-chip cookies under Amma’s supervision and went around the whole colony, knocking on all 29 doors, delivering cookies accompanied with ‘Thank You’ bookmarks that Shanky had made out of fallen leaves.

Also, one batch of oatmeal cookies for Ammu — dogs shouldn’t eat chocolate, it seems.

Friday

Najju Paati was in for dinner. I told her about Thank You week and how I had finished all my thank yous — family, school, neighbours, all of them.

Najju Paati raised her eyebrows and said, “Oh! So that’s that? No more thank yous?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah Paati. Am I missing out someone?”

“I dunno. That’s for you to tell” she said with her trademark mysterious smile.

Wonder what she meant.

Saturday

Najju Paati, your wisdom knows no bounds.

At the grocery shop today, I as usual muttered thank you when Raju Uncle returned the change. He muttered his usual “Haan beti”. That’s when it hit me, how I was saying thank you without really meaning it. So, I waited for the crowd to clear up and then bought a Dairy Milk and gifted it to Raju Uncle. “Yeh kya hai beti?” he asked in surprise.

“Nothing, Raju Uncle. Just a small thank you gift for you, and for all those toffees that you secretly drop into the bag when you think I’m not looking.”

Raju Uncle laughed and said. “Arre wah! So you did know all along. Thanks for this gift, Nila beti. This thing I’m going to eat fully myself.” When I walked out of the shop and looked back, Raju Uncle was still laughing pleasantly.

I mentioned this incident at dinner. Shanky suggested that we make a list of all the people who are silently doing things for us. The list contained many names such as Dhobi Akka, Road Sweeping Akka, Garbage Van Anna, Newspaper Anna. I was shocked that we didn’t know any of their names even though they were doing something so important for us every day.

Sunday.

Shanky and I have put together a dozen gift boxes each containing chocolate-chip cookies, a hand-painted mini towel, two origami cranes and an ice-cream stick penstand.

We have decided to make this our World Gratitude Month.

Sheela Miss is right. Thank You — two simple words but so much magic in them.

Yours gratitude-fully,

Nila