My dear readers,
Today as I was talking to a motley crowd of students, a girl student asked me, ‘what’s happiness, sir?’
I couldn’t think of any answer at once. I pretended I didn’t register the question.
As the question was repeated, I manufactured a serious look. I cast a searching glance at her. I found her standing close to a very handsome boy. They both looked so innocent and seemed so sheltered in each other’s warmth. Without wasting any more moment, I hastened a reply, ‘Happiness is standing right with you!’ Roar of laughter greeted my answer, validating my anticipation.
While recollecting in tranquility (to use the much-celebrated cliché), I find out that happiness depends (again, to use much popular expression in public domain).
My mother is perhaps most happy when shown Charulata – the Soumitra-Madhabi starring Satyajit Ray masterpiece or when she is reminded of how she once ran her family on a shoe-string budget smoothly.
My elder brother is happier listening to endless songs on newly-launched Carvan radio.
Babu is happy behind the wheel of car; the least of places I would be happy as I once drove in-between bar posts of a non-descript field right through bulging net to a bamboo post where a cow was tethered. The post was uprooted and the cow mooed madly and pranced around the field, inviting the attention of cow-man to throw choicest of rustic abuses at me that I fortunately couldn’t understand.
Joydipp, my admin, is much happier buying and playing (sometimes fidgeting!) with electronic gadgets.
Purabi, my acquaintance, is more than happy to put in hard labour from dawn to dusk, to run her small business to build an abiding shelter with her caring husband and cute son.
Some people curse at rain while it’s raining naggingly and they can’t go out. But I’m very happy to sink down on sofa and visit Golden Fortress with sharp-minded Feluda, his able assistant Topshe and funny writer, inimitable Jotayu, against the backdrop of treachery of fake Dr. Hazra and his roguish aide Mondar Bose as rain raged outside. I like to drench myself in raga Megh of Pundit Nikhil Bannerjee, ensconced in the puffy foam of my library sofa.
As a teacher I’m most happy when students understand every minute nuance of my teaching. As a writer I’m happy when I can write to the best of my potential. As a devotee of melody, I’m happier when I can bathroomsing a tune or two and that tune echoes back to me giving me a rush of thrill.
To earn money to live on, we all have to do something in life. If our profession matches with our volition, it gives us pleasure; that is happiness.
Last year shows, this early part of the year too, that simply to survive unscathed is happiness; and this lesson too; apart from the blue of sky and the flutter of a butterfly on a scarlet rose.
Sutanu Mitra
January, 2021