Bliss is in the small things…

It is a stiflingly humid day. My husband, daughter and I are on a shopping marathon. We have a long list, and we walk down the bustling street, ticking off each item on the list.

My husband gives up after a while, and sits outside the mall, where there are long benches, placed there only for men like him, who do not enjoy shopping.

My daughter and I scour the aisles looking for what we want; and also quietly review things that we do not want, but can’t resist.

What is it with sales? Sigh..!

Anyway we trudge up steps, walk some more, and get into other malls.

We have been on the road for nearly five hours. We have accomplished quite a bit, but some of the items on the list have not been checked off.

At some point, we ‘collectively’ give up. Our car is parked nearly a kilometre away, and we start heading towards the carpark. We are now strolling.

A cool evening breeze filters through the trees. Hundreds of birds are chirping loudly and getting back to their nests at sundown. In fact, there are so many birds that their chirping drowns out the noise of traffic and people.

As we walk down, we stop at a stall that sells the famous wafer sandwich icecream. The stall itself is on a bicycle. We order our wafer icecreams – mango and peppermint.

Image courtesy – Wikipedia

The lady at the stall cuts out a perfect rectangular slab of ice cream, and places them between two wafers. She then deftly slides the whole ice cream sandwich into an easy to hold plastic pouch.

We take our ice cream sandwiches and settle down on one of the long benches. We watch people going about their day. Street performers and artists keep bystanders engaged.

As our feet cry out in relief, we sink our teeth into the ice cream sandwich. Heavenly…! We relish the experience in silence. Our eyes say it all.

A simple ice cream transformed our day. Truly, bliss is in the small things!