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(Pursuit of) HAPPYNESS

Please do not ever watch Pursuit of Happyness before important events are queued up in life. Not certainly before interview where you have to show high enthusiasm and interest in making big, earning money, high aspirations and motivations….not certainly when it is not okay to ponder about happiness.

Small things in life that we can not care less about…

1:30 AM, ISBT flyover, Delhi...a certain January in my past at it’s peak

Shivers manage to catch me beneath my jacket, traveling down the sweater, thermals, cotton and woolen socks, cap, muffler and um…adidas gears.

And a man there, clad in a torn sheet… we stop, and turn and back to him. He’s scared…what r we upto? He gets up to go, we call him. We take out a sweater we were carrying… Quietly hand it to him. He’s about to take off the sheet on him, then looks at me…goes away, turns his back, takes off sheet and wears the sweater. Wraps the sheet back on himself. We notice, he doesn’t look back, walks off towards other side and disappears………

I say…” why do not affluent people help poor people? If I had enough money I would surely help them all…...”

“(Smile) Don’t you have enough money to help them already?”

My last sentence for the night…

Don’t we have enough money? Or is that it takes money at all??

We talk of career aspirations, MBA, make it big, prove myself, get jobs,brands in aspiration list…

We discuss conglomerates and cartelization, scam and budgets.

Whoz going to get power??!!….see I believe India has come a long way….12th bu GDP, 4th PPP…..NO it hasn’t, 132 by HDI and similar in literacy and poverty…See our might, corus taken over by TATA!….

28% below poverty line getting less than a dollar a day….CRAZY!! 58% getting two dollar a day…they are BPL


BPL people unfortunately do not know the definition…. Where do they fall? Which category…and well, they too care less…The rich bankrupts are much affluent than poor well to do’s! Definitions are relative and skewed. That’s how it works…but hunger doesn’t…abstraction doesn’t after all react to definitions, leave alone relative.

“Why do not affluent people help poor people? If I had enough money I would surely help them all…...”

“(Smile) Don’t you have enough money to help them already?”

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