How to be happy

The tragedy of human race has been its inability to enjoy life. From the time of caveman to spaceman, man has been mean, fretting and harbouring hatred for his brethren (remember Cain and Abel?). War is associated with human being, not with other creatures. The worst one could say about an animal is that it sometimes fights for food, or for ‘love’, but never over ego.

As the Owaisi saga unfolds and his atrocious statements get repeated clicks on You Tube, I again wondered at the ‘educated man’ that is caught up in outdated beliefs; that life is for living is never understood by many. Hate speeches reflect utter illiteracy of the speaker about the ways of the world and lays bare a philosophical vacuum in him.

We don’t make our children look at the night sky, tell them what a big merry-go-round this wondrous cosmos is, and what a wonder is life. My theory is that if we taught our children astronomy rather than meaningless history or war, we’d make better citizens of them.

To believe you are the product of an individual god in human form is one thing, to kill for that belief is another. If you try to learn a bit of the infinite cosmos, learn about the Earth’s unerring rotation and revolution and the numerous wonders associated with them, you would never want to kill, or talk of spilling blood. If you read the great classics of our wise old ancestors, you would never want to kill. If you listen to the lyrics of the film songs of the sixties, which are pregnant with little nuggets of life and wisdom, set to the tunes of masters of melodies such as S-K, K-A, Ravi, Nayyar, Burman, Naushad et al, you would never want to kill.

If you ever listen (if you are allowed to listen in a ruthless noisy city) you will wonder at the rhythmic orchestra of cicadas and wonder at its method and melody. How lulling is their music could be realised only after listening to them. You don’t have to take a sedative to sleep if you listen to them.

Instead, what we get at night in a monstrous city is the endless noise and smoke of vehicles and constructions. As if this was not enough, you will hear every other day stereo blasting your existence for one reason or another. And, if you don’t become deaf yet, you have the ‘pleasure’ of fireworks going off simultaneously in hundreds in the neighbourhood for no reason. We never learn, do we?

And pray, why can’t people indulge in a bit of musing — I fail to understand. I believe it is the priesthood that makes fodder of common masses for their selfish ends. You are in this world, thanks to Nature and not of anything else. The two life-giving entities in our system are the sun and earth: One gives us life; the other takes us back when we die.

Tomorrow scientific man may travel to Mars or he may produce a new breed of centaur but it will not tell you how to enjoy life. Before it is too late, let us try to listen to a melody at night, read a few lines of wisdom, look at a nice picture, look at the sky before retiring to bed, I am sure no violent thoughts will cross one’s mind. This does not mean the one who just suffered irreparable damage or sorrow will be able to do this. But nobody has a perennial sorrow. It will pass.

Tailend

Once there was a spate of temple burglaries in Kerala which led to demands that the state should accord security to temples. The response of the veteran communist EK Nayanar, who was chief minister then, was: “Why does God need security?” Nobody upbraided him, for everyone enjoyed the joke. But in a crude way what he said was a truism. Are we not insulting God by reducing Him to an entity that receives material gifts or money? Does the omniscient and omnipotent need man’s munificence?

Tags: caveman to spaceman, Owaisi, tragedy of human race

Category: Opinion