Happiness is hearing that silent roar

Only a few minutes back when I searched for the nail-cutter to trim my nails, I noticed that the left index finger had that tell-tale black-ink mark made during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. A little later once the nails were done I discovered that the black-ink mark now looked like a tiger’s triangular stripe and I murmured, ‘The tiger has done what it had to do.’ I smiled. I felt lighter than usual. There was a bounce in my gait as I walked back to my laptop as I knew what I wanted to write today. An idea had benevolently entered my life and I had accepted it. The mind was focused and eager to begin writing. The AC is on and my study is cool. The maid has done her work long back and there were no other phone calls expected. My mind was at peace and yet racing along with that idea not wanting to let it disappear. The words of the first paragraph are now done and as I read them I discover happiness… that little tiger stripe on my left index finger is a silent roar that my being appreciates.

Happiness is a lot of things going together like the composition in a photograph or a painting that compels one to look at it again. One doesn’t just look at a painting but opens the doors to strange unknown thoughts that may fill one’s being with a feeling that could be warm or cool… in every case it is what happiness is all about.

A few years back I remember having picked up a rupee coin lying on the footpath. No, I wasn’t looking for one. In fact, the coin had sent a few summer rays of light right into my eyes as if calling me nearer. Specky, my wife, gave me a look of disapproval but I cleaned the coin with my handkerchief and kept it in my pocket. Further ahead was a water vendor and I noticed this man standing near him in the heat, obviously thirsty. I asked him, ‘Water?’ He nodded his head in what was a distinct yes. I pulled out that coin and asked the vendor to give him a glass of water. The man put two fingers up. I took out my wallet and placed another coin for another glass. We walked on and the sun seemed to glare less for some time. I felt a nice cool breeze brush my face gently. My steps were lighter and everything around seemed chirpier.

Off and on I have wondered if happiness was something that could be bought off the shelves. No, it isn’t. Even when it appears like an intense rush or surge of emotions, it doesn’t last forever. I believe happiness is like a colourfully painted canvas where the reverse has only unfulfilled yearnings to deal with. Moments come tumbling into existence carrying both happiness and sorrow and some of us luckily get to experience the happy side. Look at a shopkeeper who has had double the number of paying customers in a day, a wimgo broker who has traded profitably ten times of what he does on a normal day, or watch a pair of young lovers sharing a pizza slice and sipping from the same bottle and it will be obvious that happiness doesn’t come with defining boundaries and may not be there for long. The shopkeeper didn’t know that a few of his customers had given him the last paisa in their pocket. The stock broker hasn’t even considered that for every profit generating deal there must have been someone who has lost in the market. The lovers aren’t aware of the sort of worries that the smiling waiter carries with him. The point that I’m trying to make here is that both happiness and sorrow are a function of the same equation seamlessly merged into each other. Peel away sorrow to unveil happiness is what I always tell myself.

Is it correct to conclude that the shopkeeper and the broker in the examples in the previous paragraph are more interested in running after money and are drifting away from happiness? I’d say they have found the activity that makes their pupils grow wider, the heart beat faster, and probably splits the white radiance of time into a rainbow of colours. If this isn’t happiness, then what is? The truth is that if we keep the tenets of ethics and the monologues of morality away for a while, even a burglar is happiest when he has had a fruitful night breaking safes. A pickpocket is experiencing the highest form of joy when he feels his backpack full of wallets that do not belong to him. Going on with the same line of thought, a politician is happiest when he hears a million idiots clap after he has uttered lies about future prosperity, a doctor smirks smugly after convincing a patient to opt for an expensive procedure that isn’t critically essential, and the mind of a babu in an office gyrates in unbelievably happy ways when he sees a rich businessman walk in with a briefcase full of money for bribing him. I can go on and on about almost everyone in every possible vocation touching happiness because of reasons that aren’t virtuous at all. This is the funny paradox of happiness. One is almost on the verge of disliking happiness if such examples keep announcing themselves in one after the other… but then happiness wasn’t meant for only saints and sages.

Happiness is as multi-dimensional in existence as any other emotion. So if you’ve heard of people crying happily or shedding happy tears, you may also have heard of people being happily angry or happily disdainful. There are happy endings, happy coincidences, and happy returns of certain days. The Kauravas were happy to watch the Pandavas make a fool of themselves when they invited them over for a game of Chaupar. Why go so far in the past and tickle mythological characters when we have our own Trump and Raga here to give us tens of instances when happiness is defined in the most absurd and ways? Aren’t teenage stone-pelters happy to be able to crack a few windshields? A beggar never feigns happiness when a happy patron hands him a hundred rupee note. Isn’t most of our world happily munching away junk food knowing it will lead to over-weight issues? I must admit that I have seen happiness in even the most unlikely places and now believe that this emotion has nothing to do with only hard work or a virtuous lifestyle. Happiness isn’t reserved for those few who manage to climb the Everest, write a book, or film memorable clips… come on, there is a happy queue on the Everest, happy books writers are now more than the number of readers, and Tic-Toc has transformed every mindless dolt into a happy film-maker. Happiness is everywhere.

Like I said at the start… even a black-ink mark on a finger-nail can bring on happiness.