HAPPINESS UNLOCKED

It isn't about how we define happiness. What do you think happiness is? Your favourite tennis stars battling it out at the Roland Garros? A skating race with your cousins? A stroll to the church? To smile at the old beggar round the corner? A chocolate cake fresh baked? Sunday brunch? The mid summer rain? A new umbrella? Watching children play in a dirty puddle? Bathing your dog in the lawn? A holiday with your partner? A candle lit dinner by the beach? A bonfire? Facebook? Scoring full marks in maths? Your girlfriend wearing that blue dress to the date you had gifted her on her last birthday? A new gold fish in the jar? Smoky pizza? Being able to unlock the toughest level of the game most of peers have failed to? A chilled bottle of beer? A hearty chat with your granny? Your child uttering his or her first word? What is happiness?

What is it? Isn't it actually just being elated because you have lived another day? Isn't it because between getting and not getting your dreams come true, waking up to yet another sunrise? Isn't happiness the breath you just took in knowing you're alive? We get some things we want. We get some things we never wanted. We want some things that we might get. We want certain things we know we will never get. Does that really change life? Is anything more important than life itself? Even love? Hear the chirping of the pigeons from the ancient arches of the cathedral. They chirp every morning. They interrupt the prayers. They don't know what prayers are meant for. But they can fly higher than us, touch the clouds and spread their wings and brush against the storm. It's us who close the windows when it rains in gushes. It's us who crave for more and more, and still don't value what we get. And then one day we die... leaving everything behind we go... alone... exactly the way we had arrived. All our worries are buried and burnt along with our pale corpses. What remains? The happiness we have given. The happiness we have spread.

Aryani Banerjee

Ex-Student (ISC 2006)

and Author of the book Little Longer Than Forever.