Questioning the Answer

This time lets play a brain game. This is about the most dangerous question in the world. A set in fact - but, it begins with this simple one: 'Are you happy?'

To which anyone would retort with an impulsive-compulsive-response, 'Yes(!)'. Just hold them there. The quicker the response, the more preconditioned and thoughtless they are. Catch them there; tell them that you really want them to know how happy they really are. Shoot Question two: 'What makes you happy(?)'

Remember: You still haven't got the answer for Q.1.

Allow the person to reflect. Let them list. It may include the normal, regular and boring: music, books, games, food and a long list of other B.S. Look interested, keep listening all the while exploring and wondering why these things - each thing - on their list makes them happy. If you are a seasoned mind reader or a gifted psychoanalyst, you must have already started to understand the subconscious drives and subliminal desires of the person; if not, understand that the tip of the iceberg reveals only a bit of the mountain it hides.

Remember: Q.2 is still inconclusive. 

This is when Question three touches the bottomline: 'Would you still manage to be happy doing the things that you do that really don't make you happy(?)' 

This is the point when retrospection really sets in when the person will try to recollect and count the things that are mundane, an unescapable list of tasks and ritualistic endeavours undertaken to be validated. Most of us do what we do just for validation without gratitude. We do things, wear things, speak things and pretend to like or even dislike something to avoid being named, labeled, branded and sealed as 'misfits' and the 'unfits'. In short, we pledge our life to be drafted according to other's opinion. And in it lies our unhappiness. 

Remember: Q.3 cannot be answered.

So when we clear off this smoggy vision of self-created illusion of happiness, we tend to see in bits, pieces and fragments the ruthlessly guiltless, shamelessly raw and fearlessly liberated parts of ourselves - caged, confined and battered over the years manifests. In these fragments across the maze lies the puzzle of who we are. In it lies the undeniable self - only if we dare to see. 

The best resort for those who don't wish to see... don't take the question.        

To Paint Play or Pray

 

There is so little left of life that no one can afford to miss one bit of a moment to experience joy, laughter and bliss. As a child we were all born happy. Others could only stop us from experiencing what we found to be happiness - like stopping us from jumping into a puddle or getting drenched in the rain or just watching a metamorphosis. Happiness is just there 'within'... by nature. 

And then the child grew and started to look around for supportive happiness, a form of dependency to make one happy that seemed impossible 'without' others permit. Happiness expected to be derived from others, other things or other's things or the other's other - the latter two squandering into the illegal and immoral territories. The idea of happiness we picked up from people around us and from leaflets in magazines to exploit man's search for satisfaction - a commercialized concept of modified and nurtured happiness. The claim that the better watch is the costlier watch, the better car is the yacht, the better (pent)house is the one on the rooftop that no one would otherwise want, the best drink is the one that oozes out of a civet's butt and the best food is something that is covered with gold that the body can't even absorb. And we fall for it...

This Veblen Effect of purchasable happiness moves us to find ways to bring in the moolah to gain the content to find what it promises. Some buy things while others go after people. Finally, we have our warehouse and storerooms full of things we do not use and our boardroom and bedroom with people we cannot trust one bit. This search for finding something lost either puts us in a vicious circle or takes us on a carrot and stick ride. 

Art turns beautiful and develops a character when the artist sublimates; but sublimation sinks the artist into the challenges, problems and issues he faces subtly yet with a subliminal effect. The end might bring in a smile but the journey would have been a walk through silent pain that only the artist would know. Sports on the other hand, would be a diversion indeed - to play that shot, to hit that target, to checkmate... that requires focus and concentration before experiencing that exhilarating sense of ecstasy - but that too comes with a quid pro quo - the sportsman has to be in a particular state demanded to reap the particular rush promised. Meditation and its associated jing bangs also can take you out of reality - like a drug - yet the reality awaits with its jaw open and shiny, pointed teeth waiting to swallow you whole when you come out of that cuckoo world. 

What is happiness then(?) Where is this 'joy'(?) When does one attain bliss(?) I have reached a phase in my life where I render it a privilege if I can find someone happy and consider myself fortunate to be in their company. That gratitude gives me a chance to be at bliss. I think when we wonder why God put us through a rough patch in our life and ask why our facade of happiness was shattered(?), it is perhaps to remove the filth that covers our eyes, to make us see the false and the pretentious lies floating around us and clean the rubbish we had to put up with while creating a space to accommodate simpler and truer essence of life. Every journey changes the man who undertakes it and every scar has a story to tell. Until then, Paint, Play or Pray... everything for a while.  

Ditches and Hitches

A smile is all that you look for when life is sloppy and you don't seem to get a hang of it.

A smile even from someone unrelated and distant can make your burden light.

A smile when the stretcher rolls, a smile when a file moves, a smile that disappears at a turn and returns to appear once again for a lifetime. 

A smile is all it takes to make it's greedy cousin - the laughter - poised for a while.

For the past few weeks I have been facing this strange issue of a reemergence of unprompted memories at the wrong time in front of unexpecting people in the most inappropriate way. These moments happened while seated on a dentist's chair and when asked to bite into a mould to get an impression or when the nurse was trying to pump out the aftermath of a few procedures - when I was expected to stay still... but couldn't. It was the return of the uncontrollable happiness and laughter that were part of my soul a few decades ago. When this imploring excavation and restoration was happening in my mouth with two, three people hovering over my face and asking me to keep my mouth wide open or shut tight, I was erupting into laughter. Why(?) Because I was recollecting old jokes, silly ones, funny ones, stupid ones, creamy ones that were once shared among friends and closer ones and with whom I have cracked up like there was no end to it.

Well, this time, I was not going to stop... I needed this happiness. Something lost over a couple of years in the past. A dark phase of my life. A phase I wish can be wiped out. A phase when I was made to feel guilty and ashamed of everything about me... like the demons could gaslight anything (kuch bhee) and were there to snatch what was 'me' out of me. Laughter and smiles are like a thunderstorm and rain that quenches the earthy soul that clears the slate. That brings back memories, a new strength, a new possibility and lets you throw a birdie at people who are there thinking that they have the power to restrict or control it. It is this happiness - even if it is in front of strangers - as embarrassing as it can be that every man deserves to have.

Life is fun. Especially when you can see possibilities past the ditches and hitches... 

An Island Of Smiles

There was a time when someone pointed out to an issue I seemed to have had and it even got labelled as 'chronic happiness'. It supposedly confused people; 'How could a person be happy even in the oddest of circumstance?' they told they wondered. Think it bothered them and many others during that time. Those were days when I faintly remember that nothing was too big that my shoulders could not carry or anything too difficult my soul could not handle - everything was doable and any challenge posed was only a motivation to complete the task at hand with ease. Life was fun.

Think it was an influence cast upon by some really strong people who suffered pain yet chose to smile - many who I had met during my wandering days... people who chose to live when all that went around them called them to die; people who faced struggle with courage; people who talked less and did more. The one incident, when I look back, that shattered me is an incident where I met a little kid who endured a painful life without a grudge - even attempting to reduce the pain of her parents bearing her own without a whimper. Think I must tell this story...

This happened when a bunch of us from Loyola were called to document a human rights violation issues in a small God-forsaken village that was getting marooned due to sand mining and other such related corporate greed in a place close to Madras. Once there, we split into teams to cover the story on behalf of each stakeholder - the elders, the mothers, the fishermen, the children and so on. I was part of a team to cover the story of children from a Government School in a small island nearby. Once the catamaran reached the spot, curious children came to have a look at all the cameras, lights and equipment that reached their otherwise ignored and isolated part of the world. 

After a little bit of rapport establishment and ice-breaking, we set to talk with them regarding how life was treating them, how they perceived issues and how they managed to live through their struggles. This was supposed to be both interesting as well as crucial as we were attempting to see issues from the children's point of view. Children often provide multi-dimensional clues to issues as they not only boldly point out to issues without any restriction yet also reveal an adult world from what they have absorbed as silent audience to their interactions - once again with no restriction.

The day went on and on as complaints piled one above the other - issues ranging from lack of regular teachers and computers at school to dirt on food served as part of the mid-day meal, their complaints were many. 

Amidst all this (by then a nauseating discussion), I could not fail to notice the bright smile on a little girl's face. She must have been 6 or 7 years old then. Perhaps, that must have been the most brilliant smile I have ever seen in my life by far. I was curious as hell to know how on Earth amidst all these complaints, she managed to smile. I asked her. Her reply was even more positive: 'Our teachers are good, they manage to teach us as much as they can; why do we need a computer(?!) when we have so many books to read? and our cooks can't do a better job than what they already do... in a home of just four don't we find at times a small stone or dirt in our rice(?!) wouldn't we then just pick it, drop it and continue to eat without complaining? Just imagine how difficult it must be for the ayyahs who cook for so many of us. This is the best we can have and I am always happy for all that is there..." she said and continued smiling. 

By now, the other kids around her withdrew and sneered at her. They were perhaps confused and angry that this one effortlessly blew all the facade they were creating so far, Finally they concluded, 'She has to be happy. What else can she afford to be? She is going to die soon after all...' There was a halt on that smile on the kid's face and was replaced with an unreasonable shameful silence.

A little shocked and being rocked back to reality, I sought clarity. I tried to ask the kid to tell me what others were talking about. She didn't. The others filled the silence and said, 'Yes, she is going to die. she has a hole in the heart that her father can't afford to treat and soon she is going to die.'

I asked the little girl if it was true. Tears rolled down her eyes and she said, 'Yes.' She continued, 'It hurts. And at times, it hurts so much in the night. To get to a doctor, my father has to carry me on his shoulder through the water as we do not have a boat or a catamaran to ferry us from our village to the other side of the land to reach the hospital at night. At times when the tides are high and my father carries me on his shoulder, I can see my father's face go down under the water as he pants for breath. To see that, hurts me more.' 'So these days,' she said, 'I do not cry at all when it hurts. I have seen my father and mother skip their food because they have to spend on my medicine. I know my father will carry me on his shoulders no matter how high the tide and I cannot to see him suffer.' 

I asked her what she does instead. She said she bears the pain. 'If it hurts too much, I bite my blanket hard and try not to make a noise that may wake my parents. I bear the pain' she said.

I believe anything one does must affect him or her - be it a relationship, watching a movie, cooking, reading a book or even writing; otherwise the things we do are not worth doing at all. This is one incident that affected me the most. Watching such matured endurance at such an young age, positivism to the core, the constant and continuous sacrifice, respect and love that runs in their family that I got to see, surprized me. 

For a person who lives an everyday life amidst chronic dissatisfaction and suburban drudgery in a concrete jungle, where even the remotest discomfort has to be amplified and cribbed about, a time when we live in a world where we pick on issues to talk about rather than work on solutions to overcome the same, living amidst people whose favourite pass-time is to discuss issues they have created or create issues so that they can discuss and remain the center of self-obsessed, self-centered and selfish conversations - because they have nothing better to do otherwise with life, this child was like a lesson straight out of the pages of a zen book to me. 

I sought help for the girl at that time. People I took up her case to, took it upon themselves to advice me to concentrate on my own affairs and consider this incident unseen if it affects me again. Social Workers I met advised me that according to some paradigm and some theory, this was a natural process and by a certain cycle, this was a process she and her parents were meant to go through until they would eventually learn to help themselves - the highest form of undependency, self-reliance and empowerment - that I dare not disturb.
Seemed like I was just going through an unstoppable wind-chime of repeated advice on the same note from each person I set to ask for help. Nothing happened, none helped, not even the slightest offer of real help at that time. Life moved by and every time I saw trouble or a chance to complain, I would be reminded of this little girl and her smile. I would turn into this chronically happy monster who could always smile.  

A few years back, I happened to visit the village where I had met the girl - now with the capacity to help with what life had granted me in the mean time. I inquired about the girl from this marooned village. The village was gone - they showed me. Like most human rights issues, the village now claimed unbothered advancement on the dead backs of the vanished and forgotten others. People from the submerged village had moved to the mainland I was told. Then a few young girls - who recollected having a classmate who fitted into my description of the person - must be the ones I had met during their school days earlier in that island, volunteered to take me to where the girl was now. We walked along the narrow lanes, now all advanced; they had self-help groups and even a co-operative store that sold traditional toys they made; there was a new panchayath building and a school that even offered a computer course. We walked all through India shining and we reached a spot where the girls pointed out to a little grave. They said the girl I mentioned had died a year after we had met as I stood there watching the cold-hearted tombstone that held the smile of a girl who had changed my life. I think I lost my smile then and there...   

The Difference Between The Rich And The Poor

"A rich man is just a poor man with other needs"

I remember a story I read... There was a sage who was looking at other sages around him and found that none of them smiled. So he tried to find out why. He asked a bearded, scholarly, eternal-bachelor who was in a brooding world of his own why he was sad and the scholar replied, "So much to learn and all I have learnt is just a drop in the ocean... what is there to be happy about?" "An ocean to learn!" he exclaimed and walked by gripping his book even tighter. Through the day the sage kept walking, asking different people the same question, "Why are you not happy? Why do you look sad" and everyone had so much to learn, so much to do and so much, much more of unfinished business that just kept them too busy to be happy.

Just then as he was passing through a brook, he saw a simple woman in tattered clothes, cheerfully whistle a tune, smiling all the while as she squatted on the floor doing a mountain of dishes outside her humble hut. He stopped in disbelief and like a man surprized to see light in the darkness, after a moment of puzzled silence, proceeded to ask the woman, "How come you are so happy? What makes you so happy???" She looked up, smiled again and like a school-going girl, giggled and shyly said, "Oh great one! you see, water here is so scarce and if I get a bucket of water to wash my bum, I am happy any day... so very happy!" and today she was!

The sage didn't have a word to say and walked on running the montage of people he had seen earlier that day in his mind and wondered "If only they had..."

How happy are we? With always having more to learn, more to earn, more to do, more to burn, more to turn, more to woo and with our endless list of things to do, sinking with every want, more and more into our world of chronic dissatisfaction and suburban drudgery. And all the while we think money makes us happy?! If only it does...

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