The pursuit of Happyness

I know many people might have already seen the movie....The Pursuit of Happyness.................in its own place it is an amazing movie..........will smith has acted very well, and it is also an inspiring movie in its own way. My friend and I who watched it were amazed at the depths and heights to which the character in the movie went. We who have learnt to do a lot with materialism and comfort as the base for our happiness would find it educative. We who have learnt to live with maids, and support systems and money in the bank would find a life where a man loses everything except his child and his will very very scary.

But that is not what got to me..................what amazed me was the fact that a politician wrote about the pursuit of happiness for his citizens , while our own politicians have not risen above the issue of roti, kapda air makan, for almost 60 years after independenc.

Given that and given the fact that our capital city boasts of one out of seven delhi-ites being depressive and suicidal....I wonder when we will ever have a country where the nitty gritties of life will be given over to finding a more sustainable and meaningful existence.

Perhaps not in my lifetime..............but then again since the partition much has changed. My grandfather came to this country with the clothes on his back, a wife and two small kids. My father learnt to fend for himself the hard way. My son goes to school in a chauffer driven car, and has holidays abroad.

Which gives me a sense of perspective.................our leaders might now know this, but we have learnt to be happy.............living in small towns, learning to ride crowded buses, living with less, or on inverters through long summers...we the Indian public have learnt the pursuit of happiness...........even if it is self-generated..........and a small drop of rain on a prched land in the middle of a searing hot day.