मुदिता

muditā

मुदिता · muditā · joy at another's joy

The root is mud — to rejoice, to be glad. Muditā is gladness that arrives because someone else is glad. Notice that our languages bothered to make a word for this. Envy needed no dictionary; it grows wild. Muditā had to be named, the way you name a plant you intend to cultivate.

You know exactly where it is tested. The class WhatsApp group, around nine at night. Somebody's child has won something, cleared something, been selected for something. There is a small pinch — quick, involuntary, before the congratulations message is typed. Muditā is not the absence of that pinch. It is what you grow, in grams, in the place where the pinch was.

At six, children are naturals. They clap for a friend's birthday with their whole arms. There is no arithmetic in it yet.

At ten, the arithmetic arrives. Marks are compared in the corridor before any parent asks. Here is the uncomfortable part — the textbook for this subject is your face, in the half-second after you hear another child's result.

At thirteen, the test is nearest the heart. The best friend gets the thing they both wanted — the team, the part, the attention. If your child can say "I'm glad for you" and mean half of it, that is not failure. Half is real. Half is where the whole thing starts.

Nothing to practise this morning. Just carry the word.