Intelligence throws up sordid truths that the innocent common man, smug in his mundane, pathetically mediocre existence is gloriously oblivious to.
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know,” pronounced Ernest Hemingway. Have you seen a brilliant scientist looking radiant and chirpy? Not often enough! Or a reputed poet, grinning from ear to ear? There is an air of laden sombreness, like a pall of gloom hovering over their whole being; almost like an extended aura, that has become a part of their mysterious persona. Intellectuals and the creme -de- la creme of society have an acquired solemnity which borders on mournfulness. The voice is heavy with the weight of pompous sheaves of knowledge and dejection drips from every pore. Perhaps, they know so much more than the rest of the world that they acquire a superior, scornful countenance and a sarcastic disdain for the lesser mortals.
Maybe, the sorrow is merely genuine misery at the lot of humankind? Well, who said glumness and gloominess were bad? Intelligence throws up sordid truths that the innocent common man, smug in his mundane, pathetically mediocre existence is gloriously oblivious to.
Alas, a lugubrious and doleful countenance, is often the hallmark of a brilliant mind. A perspicacious,sharp -witted person has the depression of numerous births, embossed in deep, bloody gashes on his visage.
The pessimists feel you are born wet, naked and hungry, then things get worse. Sometimes you get a splinter in your thigh, sliding down a rainbow. For most of us, life is a foreign language, which we often mispronounce. Louis Adamic’s grandfather told him that life is like licking honey off a thorn.For all these dismal creatures,I beseech you to see the wondrous creation that you are .You are an astoundingly accurate, bewildering jigsaw of nerves, skin and veins, infused with the powerful, immortal soul. We are venerable; we are the world. We are indeed staggeringly stunning .Let’s measure out our life with Eliot’s proverbial coffee spoons .Let our alaap boomerang on the walls of our whole being.
An improvised, unaccompanied earth shattering prelude to the divine music of the Anhad Nad.
gham aur khushi men farq na mrhsoos ho jahan
main dil ko us mqam par lata chala gaya
~Sahir Ludhianvi
I say, chaps, you needn’t be cavorting over the moon and aping a dog with two tails but it doesn’t take rocket science to get to the seventh heaven or to float on cloud nine. How about taking yourself lightly and laughing full throatily with a rumbling roar?
The Scarlet Pimpernel
She slipped on
her dancing shoes
And her flared skirt
vivid with vivacity
She twirled on tiptoe
and pirouetted till eternity
She threw back her head
And laughed uproariously
She was the daughter of joy
The sister of happiness
And the mother of ecstasy
She was “Satisfaction ”
That elusive “scarlet pimpernel ”
Of a woman !
I often wonder at the ear to ear grin that the cobbler round the corner sports with a ‘Miller of the Dee’ kind of blitheness, even though he sits under a faded black umbrella, stitched and patched in various places to ward off the scorching sun or the merciless monsoons. Surrounded by mounds of bedraggled shoes and sandals that need mending, he looks like the king of his shabby domain . There are no sighs at his meagre earnings and no snarls at the mongrel who nuzzles at his customer’s ankles.
Acceptance and thankfulness are the first firm steps to welcome that truant happiness into our beings.
Exuberance is often on a skate board
Whizzing past at breakneck speed
Over the knolls and above the troughs
It ties skis on its restless feet to zoom down Alpine peaks
With daisies of buttery cream
Exultation lies in wait behind mossy rocks
Offering confetti from arboreal showers
Of cornflower blue and scarlet poppies
Happiness is not something we can drive to or what we wear. Happiness is what we live .I find joy in the ephemeral quality of the present moment .Little thrills and thoughtful gestures can easily make me ecstatic. The electric magnetism of a loving eye is my blissful space. I can find nirvana in the folds of a romantic whisper. Who needs bundles of printed paper money to achieve fulfillment! Ask the snug bug in the rug or the pig in the mud about satisfaction.
The strains of popular Punjabi folk songs goad us towards embracing joyousness:
aakh ni nanaane tere veer nu,
kadde taan bhaira hasseya kare( o sister in law ask your brother to laugh sometimes at least ) whereas (my pearly teeth don’t stop guffawing, even though it arouses suspicion)
chitte dandd hassno nahi rehnde ,te loki bhaire shakk karde
sab se chhupa ke gham , jo woh muskura diya
uski hansi ne toh aaj mujhko rula diya.
Lily Swarn is an internationally acclaimed poet, author and columnist who has won over fifty national and international awards and whose works have been translated into seventeen languages.
