happiness is a state of mind

I always felt that happiness is a state of mind and nothing can give us happiness. This was confirmed to me again last week by an incident.

It was a Monday morning and i was travelling to work by bus. It was already hot and humid ( i live in chennai, india). It was getting uncomfortable as I did not get a seat and had to carry my laptop bag as well. In one of the stops, two young people - a guy and a girl (mid 25s) got into the bus and went past me. From the first look, it was evident to me that they were in the middle strata in the income group and were friends travelling together. The conductor asked for ticket and the guy showed an-all-day ticket. After sometime, i noticed something different. The 2 people were conversing in sign language, it struck me that both of them were hearing and speach impaired.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, they were conversing pretty happily, with several bouts of smiles exchanged, probably sharing a joke or two. During that time it became very evident that despite all their problems, the two young people were happy (they had this minor inconvenience of not getting a seat). They were oblivious to the world around them. Just then it struckme. Here I was sitting in the bus, and was thinking of the troubles that I had in my mind as well as some issues that I would face at work that day. All this did not stand near to what these two people face on a daily basis. But still, they were happy..

As i continued on my commute, i was reminded of a second similar incident. This happened during my divyadesam trips.

I was travelling to the divyadesams around mayavaram. During a visit to one of the temple in a village which apart from the temple, had only a small shop and about 25 houses across 4 streets, we reached after it was closed. We were told that the bhattar (priest) lived in the same street and we can go to his house to get the temple opened. This was around 3 pm in the afternoon. When we went his house, he gave us a warm welcome, offered us something to drink and eat. Since we had completed our lunch, we declined the offer. He then offered us to drink atleast water. The water was pretty hard with a tinge of salt. He explained that this is "well water" and ground water is pretty hard in these areas. He went on to tell us that he generally takes his two wheeler ( an old tvs 50) to the next village about 5 - 6 kms to bring his family's daily quota of water for drinking / cooking and that day there was no supply. We then went to the temple which was not so well maintained and that he had to spend some of his salary for the upkeep. Despite all this, he was extremely happy. He said that the God has taken care of him very well - "Perumal enna divyama paathukurar" is what he said. He added that he was getting about 2000 Rs a month and was more than happy with that.

These two incidents reaffirmed that happiness is a state of mind and cleared some of my own "troubles" by the time i got down from the bus.