IF YOU SEE HAPPINESS ALWAYS STEAL IT

Old Kannadasan taught me that happiness, like Avvaiyar's wisdom, must be stolen when glimpsed. I became a thief of smiles, collecting them across invisible networks, storing moments like precious data on an eternal ledger. My grandmother's laugh when I brought her flowers. A stranger's nod at dawn. These I stole freely, devotedly, without permission or apology. The world called me delinquent for believing joy shouldn't be rationed. I recorded kindness, building chains of goodness stretching backward through generations and forward into uncertain futures. Love, I learned, isn't force-fed but freely taken, shared, and multiplied. In stealing happiness, I discovered community's heartbeat, our ancestors' uncensored truth: abundance multiplies when circulated.