Quality of Life

We are always in the pursuit of a better “quality of life”. Coming from a developing country and a middle class upbringing, a better quality of life has the predictable hallmarks. If I were to sum it up, it would be really boil down to – good amount of money. Enough to live in a nice house, spend on entertainment, leisure, shopping, eating out and, afford quality education and amenities for our children.

I know I am lucky to be enjoying this quality of life early on in life. But having it and living it everyday, I am beginning to question its definition. We live in this city – husband, wife & child – with no family or close friends. Bangkok has been better to me than any Indian city I have lived in on several counts. Yet, I don’t belong here. I miss a sense of connection. Sometimes, I simply miss pain. Seeing and feeling it.

Years ago on a Mumbai sub-urban train, I found myself face-to-face with a girl with unending streams of tears down her cheeks. We sat quietly for the length of my 20 min long journey. She did not try to hide her tears. I neither pretended to ignore them nor did I reach out to comfort her. A few months later, I found myself making the same journey back home, this time the tears gushing down my face. On board a packed local train in Mumbai, I could weep without feeling embarrassed or being comforted by strangers. I thought it was the most considerate gesture. As though the city itself was comforting you by being comfortable with your pain.

Flash forward 6 years. I am cocooned in a nice big house and in a car when I step out. On the metro system, all of us are glued into our smartphones. Lots of emoticons, very few emotions. We are always polite and friendly to each other, always smiling in this Land of Smiles. You need to be a "happy and positive” person to make new friends in this new city. You need to sound happy to your mother over phone or else she’ll simply say “I told you not to leave home”. You need to maintain a happy front for your husband for isn’t this the good life we wanted – nice house, cool car, exciting foreign city, good disposable income?

I am struggling to understand this still but its becoming clear that comforts and convenience alone do not define quality of life. There needs to be a sense of connection beyond your immediate family. With the city you live in, the people around you. In my case, even a need to anchor myself to a city. I am thinking of an old Dido track –

“If my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy,

                        I deserve nothing more than I get, for nothing I have is truly mine”