Offering gratitude is a courteous way of acknowledging that you have benefited either from people around you in the past, or at present; or from Mother Nature and her varied creations; or been blessed by the Almighty.
During my childhood, my mother taught me to be grateful to the Almighty while praying at a temple, or before a picture of a deity. Feeding birds, animals or even ants in distress is an act of gratitude, often advised by astrologers. My mother would sometimes give me a fistful of grains and ask me to give leave them at an anthill, where hundreds of large ants scurried around. She would also urge me at least once a year to go to a local gaushala (a place where stray cows are taken care of by philanthropists), buy fodder and feed the cows.
There is no set format to offer gratitude, but while doing so, one does get a sense of fulfilment, and a feeling of giving back. After her retirement, my mother would wake at 5 a.m. daily and clean the whole street facing the length of our house, with a small broom. It was her way of offering quiet gratitude – to the neighbourhood for sustaining a sense of social togetherness.
