Celebrate Life

Book Review

Title: Little Things, Big Things

Author: Swarnali Nath

To live life as a perpetual celebration is not easy, especially since we live in a highly troubled world. There are all sorts of violence all around: personal, social, political, religious, and national. How do we celebrate life in spite of all that? Swarnali Nath’s self-help book is a rich guide which contains various concepts of happiness collected from diverse regions and cultures. Every chapter of this, without exception, has an exotic title like Omoiyari and Livsnjutare. They are all words taken from languages like Japanese or Norwegian. Each one of them refers to a particular way of understanding happiness, a particular key to happiness.

Swarnali [I’m referring to her by her first name because of our familiarity with each other through blogging] has done much research before writing this book, as evidenced by the elaborate bibliography and references at the end. I had read a part of this book earlier in Swarnali’s blog, and I’m now delighted to see my name featured on the cover with a blurb quoted from a comment of mine.

Happiness is the ultimate pursuit of all of us, I believe. Yet happiness is perhaps the most evasive of all human goals. There is an abundance of literature – psychological and spiritual – on how to discover happiness. Religions offer us diverse ways to arrive at happiness: pilgrimages, penances, rituals, and so on. Yet too many people remain unhappy at any time. We are told that an astounding number of 66 crore people – nearly half of India’s population – attended the last Kumbha Mela. Did even a small fraction of that figure discover genuine happiness after that ritual?

Perhaps we seek happiness in wrong places. Just as we seek God. Both God and happiness are purely personal affairs and we won’t find it anywhere else other than in our own hearts. If we do find it somewhere else, it is not genuine happiness. [Not genuine God either, but this book has nothing to do with God.]

Swarnali’s book takes us deep into our hearts. To do that, she has borrowed various concepts from diverse countries like Japan, Norway, and China. That’s why the chapters of her book carry those exotic titles. But let not the titles distract you; the content of each chapter is capable of guiding your reflection towards the depths of inner happiness. And their philosophy comes from diverse spiritual or cultural backgrounds.

Swarnali does not offer us a very facile way to happiness as many of the contemporary books on positive thinking do. Life is not a bit as easy as the positive thinkers often make it out to be. You can’t just wish away the dark shades that inevitably accompany us all through our life. Brokenness is an integral part of our existence. We have to embrace our imperfections, Swarnali counsels us with the guiding light of Wabi-Sabi from Japan in chapter 7. In the next chapter, we are told: “Within the depth of my brokenness, I found a surprising connection with the universe.” That reminded me of our own classical Rumi: “The wound is the place where light enters you.”

This little book is subtitled: The Pursuit of Calm and Contentment in Everyday Moments. The book has a very pragmatic approach to life and its problems. Its recommendations for the pursuit of happiness are not simplistic. They are poetic on one level, mystical occasionally, and combine philosophy with spirituality most of the time. The author, like the traditions from where she draws her inspiration, knows very well that genuine happiness lies in fostering a deep connection with our inner self. How to foster that connection? I welcome you to read this book.

Let me end this review on a personal note. As I was reading the chapter titled ‘Ikebana’ I was tempted to take a few looks at my flower vase in the living room where I was sitting. I cut three shoots of a blessing bamboo plant from my garden and arranged it as you can see in the picture below. Swarnali’s description of Ikebana, a Japanese tradition of flower-arrangement, reads thus: 

Three basic rules of Ikebana should be kept in mind while practising this art. Shin, which represents heaven, is the main element that should be placed in the centre. You should keep in mind that the length must be taller than the flower vase. Soe, which symbolizes the earth, is the supporting element and it must be two-thirds the length of the Shin, and Hikae, which symbolizes humanity, is the third element that should be half of the length of the Shin.

I had no idea of any of these when I cut the three stems a couple of months back and arranged them in my flower vase. My only concern is that I don’t want plastic flowers in my personal spaces. I was happy to note that my flower arrangement was in tune with the Japanese art of Ikebana. Maybe, in Swarnali’s words, “What I left unheard / The flowers whispered to my ears.”

PS. The book is available on Amazon, Flipkart, and Notion Press site.

 This post is part of the Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile