Happy Fridays

Have you heard ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams? It’s one of the most infectious, fun, happy songs ever.

So infectious, in fact, that cities across the world have been shooting ‘happy videos’ for this song. So about six weeks ago, a friend shared the happy video for Bangalore on Facebook. And I was so taken by the idea that I spent the whole Saturday looking at happy videos from across the world. I shared some of the videos with a friend from Vizag, saying ‘we should do this for Vizag’.

Now, that would have been the end of that. Except that I tore an ankle ligament and ended up with a badass cast for about three weeks. This happened exactly at the beginning of my three week vacation - during which time I was supposed to go trekking in Nepal – so all travel plans were cancelled and I found myself sitting at home in Vizag with nothing to do all day. That’s when the idea of a happy video for Vizag began to really take shape.

Some seven of us got together one Friday evening to discuss it, spent the next day planning, and started shooting from Sunday morning. We managed to get over 35 people to take part in the video, which we shot in just four days. We spent another week editing the video before finally uploading it on YouTube.

It’s been just a little under two weeks since we uploaded the video, and we’re close to a 100,000 views already! We’ve been featured in three local newspapers and one magazine. We’ve been approached by commercial establishments offering to sponsor the video! And we’ve received overwhelmingly warm and positive responses for the video from people across the world. Nike, who directed the video, is so inspired by the response that he is now working on a short film that he wants to do next.

So all I really wanted to say in this post is: go watch our video, right now! And I promise it’s going to make you happy.