The Pursuit of Happiness

I have been thinking lately. I have been thinking hard. Not that I seldom practice it and hence I have to blog (read brag) about it, but then there is something unique about this particular thought.

I have thought about this since long time. When I was a child, still this thing kept me worried. And that worrying thing is nothing but a question: “What is the purpose of life?”

When I was a kid, one fine morning, while playing with my friends, I fell, and I was crying. Suddenly I realized, I was crying for myself. As I had a feeling that my “self” was not in the so called happy mode. I wanted to see if I could do away with the crying part, and I could laugh. I tried and I succeeded. Of course for a brief stint though. I hadn’t paid much heed to it. And my parents and the others around me, found me to be very brave and courageous.

That was not the least true. I am a coward and everyone who knows me a well, knows this about me. I am scared of everything around of me. Not necessarily I cry though in every situation. But I do.

I remember I was scared of lying to my mom when I was a kid. So after flunking a number of math problems in class IV exam, I came back home and lied. I knew I had got a couple wrong, and my upbringing told me that was an unforgivable sin. My parents never would beat me, but still, I feared the very worst, and lied. I am afraid of failures. In games, or in exams. That’s why I was pretty much a studious student till my fourth grade. I feared coming second and studied even harder. All these fears were allayed off one day.

When one by one they came true. I was no longer the best player among my friends (not in cricket, not in football not in TT), neither I remained the best student in the class (came second in fourth). All these slowly ragged the fear a bit down. Things I could do so well, when I was afraid of them, were not my forte any longer since I faced those very fears. In a way, I won over them.

Coming back to the topic, crying and laughing became an experiment for me. I have laughed at strange circumstances where none would have thought of, though never actually tried crying when I should be laughing. Probably it was because a moment of laughter is too dear a thing to be wasted in meaningless tears. The thought that these experiments gave rise to, was of profound importance and gave me a belief which made me what I am today.

I started believing a human being is who he wants to be. The circumstances do play their part in shaping you. I am no master at human psychology to deny or to trifle at that. But I believe I am who I wanted to be. And of course you are who you wanted to become. These played a part in going forward in my thought process and ask a few more questions.

I wanted to know if I am who I wanted to become, then in reality, who I am or rather who I wanted to become. I hope I am not perplexing the reader with too many complex sentences. Then I started asking, why I wanted to become what I have become. What was the purpose that led me to it?

While growing up, slowly trifle things took over my mind. Trifle things like, studies, career, job, onsite, dollar, rupees, pound starlings, and girls and many more. I never took care of thinking about these things anymore. The other day, I was talking to my mom over the phone. And we were joking about my aunt’s devoted faith in Shri Ravi Shankar ji’s “Art of Living” gyans. My mom had a confused state of mind whether to pursue what others are so devotedly pursuing. She said, at her age, people should be devoted to God. She should be now, thinking about religious matters and should be set free from all the trifle things of life. She thought, all her life was spent in trifle things anyway. And now as she nears that ninth gate towards eternity, she should remember the One who sent her here on earth to fulfill her duties. I could not help but laugh. And at the same time, my questions which always had bothered my subconscious came back to me at once.

What was the purpose of human beings life? I, at once, realized that it’s not fulfillment of duties that people think they should be doing. Rather, it’s a pursuit of happiness that human beings are here for. That pursuit of happiness makes what you are. And being happy is the goal of life.

Hostel Part II

[This is a continuation of the earlier story I did about my hostel life. The same precautions and parental guidance are valid in this case too. ]

Hostel helped me to grow up. Our college and hostel was located in the same campus. It was far from the city. So there were hardly any time pass apart from playing football or cricket in the afternoon after college is over. We spent our time by going college, by not going college, by drinking tea at chacha’s shop just outside the campus, or eating the fabulous ghoognee(a chatpata dish made of chhola) with mudi.

Ragging days were over and it was time to befriend between ourselves. Freshers welcome was coming soon. Every college has its own heritage of giving fresher’s welcome. Ours was the fabulous choreography, of course by our senior girls. None admitted it but I am sure everyone loved it. There were really beautiful girls giving us a dancing welcome, something we had never thought we would ever get, not even if we someday win a nobel prize. And our mind raced. For seniors, whoever reads this post, “No, we strictly didn’t fantacise about your girlfriend!”. We were a bunch of loosers on the second floor. None of us were handsome, none of us ever capable of doing anything in life. We stayed in the anonymity of our second floor life. Ground floor and first floor knew that there are people who are there on top of them, but none really knew who are these morons. We became friends through this united second floor feeling. And there came a blow.

As soon as the ragging days were over, people came out with their own ideas of harassing other people. When I say harassing, it was not exactly harassment, it was simple fun but sometimes a bit overboard. At least the person on whom the prank is being played will definitely think so.

I remember one night after a tough day at college (having done woodworks at the workshop it was definitely one of those rare physical labour days ) I was sleeping hard. Suddenly a splash woke me up. I was so deep in sleep that suddenly it felt like a flood has come into my room. and I woke up, in the darkness I could figure out a guy moving outside my room through the open window. I woke up to fully to realise a dirty underwear hanging on top of the mosquito net of my bed giving that flash effect!

My friends and I retaliated. We invited those two guys who did this to play prank on two of the other guys from our floor. They agreed not knowing the gangster move we played beneath this. They had cocme to scare the two of the most peaceful guys of our floor. And the plan we had was, as soon as they come, we have to shout as if thieves have broken into. And then give those two a nice beating. The plan went on excellently and the next morning, there were cries of pain from two rooms.

These were petty hostel rivalries. These faded away as we grew up. Slowly there formed groups among ourselves.

1. Group A: group of nerds. Every college has them. They read hard, usually bespectacled, use a lot of PJs and laugh out loud at them. Some people considered me to be a part of this bunch initially due to good results in the beginning. As my results went down gradually, they lost all the hope they had about me and I was no longer (not even in ppl’s thoughts) a part of this.
2. Group B: group of Casanovas. These people were hugely interested in girls. From day1 they had their eyes set up on picking up girls. They talked about which girl to be picked up. They used to bet on who will pick which girl. They even went on to bet which hostel guys will have all the girls and all stupid stuff.
3. Group C: group of sports buff. A lot of my friend circle belonged to this group. This people ate, drank and dreamt of sports. There were people who used to play football after coming back from college then during the evening, there started the looong period of table tennis, carom volleyball etc. And if it was winter, we had our beloved cricket and badminton tournaments.
4. Group D: group of street smarts. The most respected group of the college. These were the people loved by all. They might be short on funda, short on their patience to study but they had a brain to overcome all. These people usually featured in all activities of college enthusiastically, scored good ranks and had a high CGPA.
5. Group E: group of addicts. By addicts I don’t mean cocaine or heroine though. But I am sure there were a couple of fellows regularly taking those. The most popular in thing in hostel was N10 tablets. Another spasmo tablet. Never knew what they are for or what pleasure they gave to these people. Some of them ruined their lives. Some, when I last heard, were on the verge of doing the same.
6. Group F: group of madhatters. I love to call them so as essentially these people never fit into any known types. They were a brand of their own. Some of them singers, some of them poets, some of them loners, some of them gamers and some of them most creative people on earth!

More to come on this…a lot more groups were there. Stay tuned…