A very good morning to you too!

A very good morning to you too!

Trying to overcome this strange feeling of unnaturalness during Covid times, I looked for and found not one, but many suggestions, write-ups and videos from several well-wishers and the internet. Most said we should be grateful for what we have and not complain about what we do not have, which would make things easier in those difficult times. It seemed to make sense because the list of what we have is generally a whole lot shorter than that of our desires or wanna-haves. So, this exercise in gratitude not only takes very little time and effort, but also eggs people on to yearn for the longer list and distracts the mind from the current issues.

Unlike what we do with most of the advice, I started to follow this in true spirit. For a few months I was effusive in my gratitude to and for everything- nature with all the living and non-living beings in it (lizards would forever be an exception), family and friends, residents in our complex who smile back, the domestic help, the neighbour, the garbage boy, the subzi wala (vegetables seller), ration wala, ande (eggs) wala, bread, doodh (milk) wala, children of all kinds, doctor friends, the water and electricity department staff (the supply was better those days than it is otherwise), and hundreds of other people.

But I must admit that it did not last long. I had to stop and draw a line at being goody, smiley, nice, ‘thank you, so sweet of you’ all the time because I was being labelled as weird. That I might be anyway, but let me not divert from the topic. So, I am back to my old sense of balance, expressing my gratitude by the moment.

All along there has been a single category of people who have remained on my list of gratitude-deservers, and they are the ones on my WhatsApp contact list who send me good morning messages, with or without images and motivational quotes.

Now, let us look at their sacrifice and appreciate it. They may or may not be having a good morning themselves but they want me to have a great beginning to my waking hours.

Sadly though, I did not know that I am not the sole recipient of people’s love-soaked greetings. They do not merely send these goodwill wishes to me. They have something called a broadcast list, an alphabetical list of people they know or would like to know who they send these missives to. They may be sending it to groups as well.

The pain of this blow to my ego dulled when I understood how these people with noble thoughts and intentions, were binding all of us together in one unifying thought. A wide range of half-awake men and women enjoying the sunrise, reading the newspaper (yes, some of us still have that addiction), listening to devotional songs and discourses, doing yoga, in the middle of their morning walk, mothers tugging blankets off sleeping kids to push  them towards the bathroom reminding them of the homework, lunch box or grumpy men demanding their fourth cup of tea to down their gullets, etc. all are included in that greeting without any bias.

Now, I visualize thousands of good morning messages darting through the air surrounding scores of time zones on this planet where only the sun and the earth have the right to decide when and where it would be day or night. So, it is possible that your good morning message lands on somebody’s phone in some other country when they are yet to wake up from dreams during what was your previous night or are already having a bad work day several hours ahead of your time.

These messages are images of several kinds- a quote from some great name, a life lesson, a universal truth, or accompanied by a picture of a god, a saint, a bird, flower, cat, dog, baby, sun and sky, chai/coffee, food, a beautifully laid table, a human form or a sweet emoji.I remember how the eyes of Mani’s niece had widened beyond the size of the frame of her glasses when I showed off the good morning messages I receive. Apparently, like in everything else, the US of A is still behind India in this respect. I am told they still follow the old system of sending what we used to call SMS. If I remember correctly, that was even before Modiji’s government came to power. Such long time ago!

Talking of Modiji, an India Today report of January 23, 2018, said that at a BJP meeting held the year before, our Prime Minister had said that he sent good morning messages to party MPs daily but very few replied. He had said even the important messages that tail this wish are ignored by the MPs. Had he sent them to me, I would have read them without fail, albeit after 1.00 p.m. and wished him a good afternoon. I guess nobody among the 1.30 million of us ever wishes him well at that time.

Somebody complained that I answer their good morning messages with good evening, so late I am in looking at them. As expected of a well-mannered person, I apologized profusely and explained that I only use my phone as a timer/alarm clock. It has never struck my dumb mind to pick it up and see every time it pings with a message after I wake up.

An aunt reasoned with me that good morning images are very important between children away from home and their parents. Both are anxious about the well-being of the other. Therefore, such a message satisfies them that all is well.  

Naturally, I thought of my son and the image I could send him. Na, sorry folks, geht nicht. He would roll his eyes at the phone and mutter ‘Ugh, Not again’. The next weekend he calls, I would hear the irritation in his, ‘Aren't you being pushy, Ma?’ Lucky are those whose children love receiving such daily doses of love, inspiration, and gratitude from their parents! I guess mine would just get my pathetic bank account.

Google must have been thrilled to bits on finding that these good morning messages have resulted in manifold increase in the number of Google searches for such messages from India.

Referring to a survey by data-storage firm Western Digital Corporation that an Android phone in India starts to show the notification of slow storage because of the volume of these messages, a Wall Street Journal (Are Americans jealous of us?) report had said that Google developed the Files Go app only to help users free up storage space. Naysayers all, won’t you say?

Work in such a way so that the others say,
 "Leave it, I'll do it myself."

My only doubt/regret is why don’t these senders care if the rest of my day also goes well? Who is going to take care of the 20 or so hours left on that date after they are done sending only suprabhat/good morning messages. Shouldn’t they be sending messages all through the day to wish me well?

Therefore, I take this opportunity to publicly wish all of you a very good morning, forenoon, afternoon, evening, early or late evening, good night, all times of the day, every day of the week.

Perhaps you could also suggest them that in this day of online ordering of food, they can occasionally, keep this copy-paste aside and be original. They may send me a dosa, samosa, cake, halwa, chhole-bhature, stuffed parathas with a dollop of butter melting on it, nihari-kulcha, and everything tempting, the pictures of which they otherwise send. Why, I have such simple tastes that if they choose to send me flowers, chocolates, cheese, and a bottle of wine instead in a ‘very good’ morning, I would humbly accept it and express my gratitude with everything - an image, a quote, and an emoji.

                                                                                        -Anupama S Mani