Hygge!

“The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” 

– Oscar Wilde.

As you are all aware, English language has assimilated many words and phrases from other languages including Indian languages. The usage of such foreign words in English has become necessary as the foreign words convey the desired meaning and expression in short and very effectively and in majority of cases such words do not have an equivalent English word in short. The list of such foreign words is rather very large. For example some common Indian words in English are Guru, Bungalow, Jungle, Pajama, Khaki, Loot, Dacoit, Bazaar and so on. And similarly there are many words in English from all over the world and especially from French and Latin, and we use most of them regularly.

The title of this article, which also figures in the above pictures – Hygge (pronounced as Hoo ga) has not yet made a big entry into English language, but it would soon and everyone will talk about it. This is because since the beginning of the ‘World Happiness Report’ published by the United Nations annually, Denmark is standing out as the World’s Happiest Nation and this is because of Hygge! And not because of GDP - Denmark’s GDP rank is 12th in the world.

There are many ways to describe Hygge. Hygge means creating and enjoying a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people – family and friends.  Graciousness, contentment, good feelings, warmth and warm glow of candlelight are all a part of Hygge. There’s nothing more Hygge than sitting around a table, discussing the big and small things in life. Hygge is intrinsic to the Danish lifestyle. And Television is definitely not a part of it.

The high season of Hygge is now in winter, around Christmas. Denmark winters are long and dark, so the Danes fight the darkness with their best weapon: Hygge, and the millions of candles that go with it. There is summer Hygge too, with picnics in parks, barbecues with friends, outdoor concerts, street festivals, bike rides and so on.

Everyone in the world wants to be happy. We in India have many occasions to celebrate, like birthdays, weddings, wedding anniversaries, celebration of child births, celebrations for success at education and success at jobs, success at anything, several happy religious traditions, festivals, holidays, picnics, vacations, movies, shopping, weekends and many more occasions. But unfortunately we are not in the list of World’s 150 Happiest Nations. I wonder why.

Touch Wood, our family’s Hygge was always there and God bless will always be there - to be happy and make others cozy. And this fact I am sure all followers of my blog would agree. In this context I wish many Indians embrace the Danish art of Hygge and as it propagates, everyone would be surrounded by Hygge!  And our Country will be as happy as Denmark.