We are among the happiest, does that surprise?

Indians are among the happiest people in the world, says a survey . Does it surprise? We can watch porn in assembly, swindle Rs 1,76 lakh crore and come out on the streets for a rant fest anytime. We can be corrupt and gleefully blame the other person for being corrupt. We can throw shoes at our leaders and thrash them occasionally. We can ogle at women and bring all lust into imagination, yet we can still preach morality to the world. That is happiness. The more the society allows us to be hypocrites, the bigger is the happiness. The more it asks why are we the way we are, the lesser is the happiness. It curtails freedom and the guilt pleasure coming out of its misuse. Forget inflation, poverty, joblessness and all such depressing thoughts, nothing pleases us more than trashing each other. Ask the BJP and Congress guys. They will explain why. [caption id=“attachment_210453” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Happiness is about freedom and freedom is about about lack of control. Reuters”] [/caption] Money can’t buy happiness, the survey suggests. It tries to justify the point by pointing out that the world economic powerhouses — United States, Canada and Britain —come somewhere in the middle of the happiness scale. Funny. If there’s no money you cannot buy a good mobile phone. If don’t have have a good mobile phone your porn-watching becomes a bad experience. If MLAs don’t enjoy what is on their display screens, where’s the happiness? Thus happiness is all about money, forget the survey. Ask Andimuthu Raja, the former Telecom Minister, who is in jail for allegedly masterminding the 2G scam. He could have managed with whatever salary his ministerial position allowed and the perks that came with it. But obviously, that was not enough to make him happy. He thought big, really big. He surely believed more money could buy him much more happiness. The soup he is in today is an unintended consequence. He misused his power. But what is power if it is not misused. But that’s another story. “There is a pattern that suggests that there are many other factors beyond the economy that make people happy, so it does provide one element but it is not the whole story,” said John Wright, senior vice president of Ipsos Global, which has been surveying measuring happiness across the globe for sometime. Not a very productive activity one must say. But let that pass. “Sometimes the greatest happiness is a cooked meal or a roof over your head,” he explained. Yes, but these are nothing like running down others, particularly a rival, either actual or imaginary. The organisation possibly does not take into account the measure of happiness derived by people vandalising the reputation of others by shooting off toxic posts on the internet; television anchors launching into a spiel to bulldoze guest panelists; or the Congress leaders calling the BJP leaders corrupt and vice-vesa. That would make the study much more interesting. Indians, of course, would beat others in the world by a wide marginin in that case. Happiness is about freedom and freedom is about about lack of control. Our legislators are happy, there is no one to control them if they don’t work; our executive is happy because it can take decisions in bad faith and escape; the civil society is happy because it can come on the streets and do some song and dance when it pleases; the Muslim fundamentalists are happy because they can stop writers from entering India; the Hindu fundamentalists are happy because they can attack ‘inappropriately’ dressed women; politicians are happy because they can point scores on television; and the media are happy because there is enough nonsense around to keep them busy. Is the common man happy? No survey can bring out the reason why a farmer being short changed by the government for his land or a man grovelling before clerks in government offices to get his work done or the tribal fighting a losing battle against mining biggies should be happy. He sure cannot be happy by trashing others, or indulging in guilt pleasure. Life is too real for him. Happiness is a subjective/relative quantity. Let’s hope he is happy too.