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Hello! My name is Sundeep Bhatia. I'm a graphic and web designer living in Delhi, India. Recently I took a personal development course. As a part of the course, I was advised to do a community project that would be a benefit to others. But what to do?
I started thinking about the kinds of things that have brought me happiness and personal fulfillment. Suddenly-- I remembered that painting had always been a childhood passion for me. When I recall my school and college days, all I remember is painting. I was drawing sketches and coloring them all the time.
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I don't know how or when, but I just stopped painting altogether. To my astonishment, I never realized it's been nearly 11 years, and I haven't touched a paint brush or lifted a single crayon. After I graduated from college, I started working as a graphic designer. Somehow, I completely forgot the happiness I used to get while making sketches and coloring them. That's when I decided to look beyond the muddle of these eleven years that have gone by, and reconnect with my personal happiness.
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Once you set aside your past, there's a lot of empty space created within you. What better way to fill that space up with something creative and constructive? All of this came to me in a burst of revelation-- and "Happiness is in Your Hands" was born!
Now was my chance to revive my passion. I began telling other people about my personal breakthrough. Soon I was encouraging others to enroll in my "Happiness is in Your Hands" project. I enrolled some friends and family members in my project, and within days my project became our project. Together, we spoke to kids in our neighborhood-- asking them if would they like to paint. The children were more than enthusiastic!
Since the basic theme of the project was personal happiness, I asked the children to paint whatever makes them happy. I really wanted the children to express their happiness in a personal way, so I did very little to influence their creativity. 40 paintings came into existence out of my doing this project with the kids. A few kids enjoyed the project so much that they created more than one drawing.
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There was no competition between the kids, because the project was not about outdoing another child. No-- it was merely about expressing themselves creatively, by describing their personal happiness; anything that made them happy. Happiness was truly in their hands! Never before had I realized, that there was another way to express my personal passion for painting. The children's response went way beyond my expectations-- and it truly made me happy too.
All of us go through tough times in life. We do not often recognize it, but we always have a choice to make. We must either move beyond the difficulty with a smiling face, or continue to be discouraged by seeing only negative things. If you keep on singing sad songs, life will give you all the more reasons to sing sad songs. Yes, happiness is in your hands…
Much of our happiness and sorrow comes from within ourselves. Rather than becoming a victim of our life's circumstances, we can always exercise a personal choice in the matter. Each of us can discover our personal happiness if we really want to. For me, what started off as a small project for a class I was taking, has now become a vital part of my new outlook on life. Yes, taking responsibility for my personal happiness is now my new way of life.
The 40 paintings produced by the children of Delhi, India, are now being framed. They will be donated to a local hospital, where they will be put on display it in a pediatric wing. The message that Happiness in in Your Hands will cheer and encourage kids who are recovering from some ailment-- and will bring pleasure, and smiles of happiness, to all who view them.
Take a look at some of the paintings that the children created during this project--
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Swans by
Akshay kapoor - 11 yrs
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Cricket by
Yash Banswal - 11 yrs
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Butterfly by
Stuti Bhatia - 6 yrs
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Air Balloon by
Akhil Garg - 7 yrs
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Sundeep Bhatia with inputs from Keith Scaff
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