What’s the definition of happiness in common man’s context? May be a full meal two times a day, a roof above the head, and clothes to wear sums up happiness for some. Dazzling disco lights and gallons of drinks bring happiness in some. Some find happiness in enhancing knowledge and some find in creating certain form of art. Happiness is such a big aspect that finding its true essence is a difficult task to complete. But for sure, happiness is just a state of mind which is sometimes broken and sometimes multiplied. A great mind named Sri Sri Ravishankar defines happiness as: “when the mind is free of past impressions and future cravings, happiness is thereâ€.
India’s current population is 1.32 billion and out of that only 26.93 crore people are below poverty line. If suppose we consider having two meals a day, dancing in disco lights, wearing proper clothes, education in school/college/university, finding job in reputed firms bring happiness, then the number of happy people in our country should be sky high as 21.9% people are deprived in India. People with all basic amenities and luxuries are generally considered happy at an economic level. But the recent World Happiness Report (WHR) made me pause and think to write on this vast topic. As per WHI, we rank 118 among 156 countries and that’s a serious threat to our being and certainly not a reason we can rejoice.
Old and wiser people often say that in their youth the time was happier. It means that even when my country was in the shackles of prison under British Rule, the people were happier with meager things. During our grandfather’s time, all of us were held together by our familial ties, and a sense of belonging used to work in everyone’s mind. Now as a result of economic surge, when there’s truly no difference between companies and countries, we are now spoilt with choices.
Picture 1: Insane people are gang-raping innocents and mutilating them, and half of countrymen are basking in the glory of Blue men’s performance in T20.
Picture 2: Some star named Pratyusha Banerjee ended her life and some other so called stars are making it a bait to gain some publicity by banning ceiling fans.
Picture 3: A man kills his mother for some meager property issues, some youth kills a doctor just on some heated arguments, and our PM is still busy either in attending delegates from foreign countries or visiting foreign countries.
Picture 4: An over bridge in Kolkata collapses and with it so many promises, meeting, and dreams broke still on the other hand people are busy either marking themselves safe in facebook or slamming the state government.
What’s happening all around us? In this scenario Aamir Khan’s controversial statement on leaving this intolerant country seems correct. But that again sounds like an escapist and won’t bring happiness back. Actually, we are just the result of our own technological creations and said a bye to our human aspects, in fact we have forgotten to be humans. Man is called a social animal, and we have done full justice to this stigma of being named a social animal in today’s date as we are too much social with our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Whatsapp profiles. Our tolerance level has degraded so much that we can easily snatch away lives of other’s and the self without even thinking of the people who had shown us light of this world. In some time may be we all would stop talking to each other verbally, because we have all these social mediums to love, care, shout, and talk.
Thinking on a larger level, all our intimacies and relationships are being crippled and swallowed and I fret that we are held together by the weak glue of Facebook and Twitter and surprisingly we feel fake as well as safe. We are so used to same day delivery, and instant happiness that we end our relationships and life very easily. We have forgotten to tie the loose ends, mend the broken pieces, in short we have stopped spending time with ourselves. We look into the mirror and pose for a selfie and end up clicking only a make-up laden face but what about the soul inside? Who would cleanse that?
Being Schadenfreude nowadays gives us much pleasure. But what lies ahead is dreary. Those BPL (Below Poverty Line) people are none of the characters mentioned in the pictures above. It’s all of the high class people who somehow are in a position to enjoy life are heinously shrinking from life. To be happy one needs to be tolerant first and that can come up only with acceptance of the present situation without losing one’s mind.
