I know, not of course going by the mind route or groping around dark tunnel of consciousness, nor hobbling my way on a crutch of thoughts or flying on wings of imagination, that I have not yet discovered any such thing that I can confidently call ‘HAPPINESS’ with a certain degree of certainty. Or maybe, I have this congenital inability to know, sense, feel or recognize it. If that is the case, why am I talking shit and sowing thorns on the path of serious happiness seekers! But then, it occurs to me, there’s nothing wrong in holding out hope, who knows, I accidently hit the thing called happiness by kicking around the thing! But again, running fingers across keyboard taxes brain and pisses tranquility of head down the drain, and yet, hope for happiness to rain, a pursuit in vain!

As a kid I was told that the life had a purpose and that was to make heaps of money and go rolling in it. Happiness will come along. Then, it was the mantra in the village that they hammered into heads of every growing up kid as if those were the words written on tablet of stone. That would send me laughing like a drain. I’d curl lips, pull up nose. In their eyes I was a plucky kid and incorrigibly cheeky that made most of them hates the sight of me. As I see it now, ‘hate’ has amazing power to steel one’s nerve. The more they hated the greater thick-skin I got.  It always emboldened me. Hate may be poison for some and elixir for other! They would gnash their teeth, curse me and say; I would live a pauper and die a pauper sifting through roadside stinking garbage container overrun by mice for bits of rice. Intriguingly, their hurling of curses on me was both like showering rose-petals and thorns on me, I mean, half curse and half blessing. Honestly, I always wished to die a pauper, not quite comfortable living a pauper, though. I go by the English phrase, if wishes were the horses, baggers would ride them.

Forty years down the line, it’s gone out of fashion. There’s popular demand for this thing called happiness. Wonder if the village I grew up still chant the old mantra or embraced a new one! When I look around now, I see people, young and old alike, harping on about happiness even though they haven’t shed the passion for raking up money, straight or crooked. Thieves or saints, everyone holding out hand in prayer for happiness. That wonders me if the mad rush for wealth accumulation is slowing down! That of course doesn’t mean people have started spraying graffiti on wads of cash, stomping down on money, wiping their asshole with the thing having images of kings and presidents on it, and spitting on it. No, nothing like that! The rapacity of people seeking more money, the greed for it, crave for it, is by no means gone down nor will it come to a halt anytime soon.  The race is on. It only means that those who have walked down the path paved with gold and silver playing with their money have somehow, accidently or otherwise, stumbled over a thing that flew the thought into their head that money was not the life is all about. They felt like they are draining barrels of beer down the throat only to find the thirst not going away. What use is making the bed of gold when the fucking money can’t buy sleep from a mall! Yeah, but, no one is going to throw the golden bed out of house just because they find it hard to sleep on it!

Neither, those sleeping on beds made of gold and those walking on carpets sewn with money hide the fact that they haven’t found the ‘happiness’ in spite of climbing every ladder of success. The poor put the blame at poverty for snatching their happiness from them. Who or what should the rich pin their blame on for being wretched and miserable! The poor have an edge over the rich. They can at least put the blame at the door of their poverty. The rich can’t even do that!   But then, either is unhappy. One is unhappy for not being rich and the other is unhappy in spite of being rich. They want to find happiness.

I recount a story I wrote some time back about ‘stolen’ happiness. People from a village nestled in the hill came to know that the river below them at the foot of hill flowed with liquid gold. Every single villager made a mad rush to the river with buckets, barrels, jerry can and containers to harness gold. The devil sneaked into the empty village, stole their happiness, and hid it in the mountains. In buoyant mood, shouldering containers filled with gold villagers walked home bubbling over with happiness.  Before long, they discovered their happiness gone. Their heart sank, their spirit hit the rock bottom, and gloom clouded their faces. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Sad, lonely and hopeless, they lamented over their blind rush for gold. And then, a clairvoyant mystic came along who divulged to them where the devil had hidden their happiness. He asked them to dig road to the mountain top and unearth their happiness all by themselves. The mystic warned that everyone, young or old that want their happiness back must work through sweat of their brow. It took them 20 years to dig the road to the mountain. Half of them didn’t live to make it. Two-third of the remaining perished on their way back to the village. The rest spent rest of their lives squabbling over whether or not the regained ‘happiness’ was the same happiness that the devil had stolen from them.

As to me, I never longed for this deadly thing called ‘happiness’. I don’t want to live with constant dread of losing it, and then, putting through painful struggle of finding the ‘lost’ happiness. I call it dangerous coz it is like I suddenly come across a nubile lying stark naked on a meadow by the riverside. I can afford to stick around for some time drinking in her beauty but I can’t peel my clothes off me and rape her.