More happy than not

by Tanvi Hegade (India)

I didn't expect to find Portugal

As I slip back into the habit of this city where the scuffle for space becomes even more apparent as people scuttle for shelter while it rains, I find myself trying to hold on to the remnants of all that was last month. Oh, the thrill of being in places that are not mine to call! The India-Europe hustle, even when temporary, is a disorienting one. And even as I write this, I discover that I delight in this very confusion, this chaos, the collision of the two me's, as it were. And yet, there was enough time for all the experiences to seep in. Sufficient for the rivulets of beauty to trickle down to my bones, keep them warm for a while. Your travels definitely have to count for something if you embark on them with a thank-you note to the universe and return home with a few thousand prayers of gratitude yet again. How do you begin to comprehend an experience that offered you glimpses into yourself as much as much it allowed you a peek into worlds & people, familiar and unfamiliar? So many stories. Where does one begin? At arriving in Lisbon and the sudden snippets of the Portuguese language falling on my ears and the consequent wave of homecoming that hit me? Or at performing in the beautiful spaces of the Belém Cultural Centre and the Alface Hall and the rush of gratitude for the audience that turned up, simply based on the curiosity of watching art from another country? Or in Sintra, where Shashank, Samaira and their kids opened our eyes to a way of parenting that was so organic and so right, there almost seemed no other way that it could be done? Or in Braga and Coimbra, with architecture that fits better in imagined worlds in parallel universes than in the life we exist in? Or at the joy of meeting old friends and finding the same camaraderie while being shown around their hometowns and the places they grew up in and the stories that touched them and that they were part of, and to wonder how you ended up on the receiving end of all this generosity and warmth? During the solo leg of this journey, as I was taking a walk around Coimbra on an overcast day, I found myself facing a humongous university building, gorgeous and majestically ancient-looking. Immediately, the air seemed to shift – and everything for the last few weeks seemed as if it happened only to lead up to this moment, for me to experience this feeling of peace. Nothing phenomenal actually occurred in this time, mind you. Only the universe telling me that for that very minuscule period, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And that I was enough. As if, temporarily, the filters keeping me from accessing this place inside of me just vanished and I entered a vacuum – where things didn't have to be perfect to be right. They simply were, and that was enough to make sense. It was a feeling of existential cosiness of sorts. I found this term in an article recently about the Glossary of Happiness, and it kind of made complete sense. While otherwise constantly contemplating my place and my purpose and fretting about whether I am making the right choices, this one precious moment of contentment was like stumbling upon a priceless treasure. "Sich wohlfühlen", as they call it in German – I don't think the English equivalent of "well-being" quite cuts it. I would describe it more as "feeling oneself to be well". 'Well' here being restored, relaxed, rejuvenated – an absence of conflict, if I may say so. If this trip were a physical object, I'd wrap it in silk and carefully place it in one of the intricately carved wooden jewellery boxes handed down to me by my mother. I've been thinking about the idea of happiness a lot lately. And I'm starting to realise it's all so relative. Portugal made me feel... more happy than not. It is also where I was introduced to the phrase, and I thought to myself: on most days, isn't that enough?