Unhappy people

Let me paraphrase the way Tolstoy begins his Anna Karenina: Happy people are allalike;each unhappy person is unhappy in his own way. Maybe that is the reason happy people are dull, of scant interest. Itis the unhappy people who are unique and interesting, sometimes fascinating.

- IT CAME TO MIND | MANISH NANDY

The unhappiness can be for a thousand reasons. A sad case is when a freak accident causes long-lasting misery. Margie was on a happy trip to Egypt, fulfilling her dream to see the pyramids, visit the Great Sphinx and ride a boat down the Nile. The lively Egyptian people in the capital city of Cairo, the shopkeepers and housewives, fascinated her. She was riding a tour bus to Luxor’s Karnak temple whena rushing truck brushed her bus. Two bus riders died instantly and Margie, sitting at a window, had her left side injured. Medevacked back to the US, she underwent a dozen surgeries and now uses a prosthetic leg and a wheelchair. Her whole life changed overnight. She has adjusted to her loss, but she rues her long pain and adjustment and the radical downturn of her life.

Orasingle lapse may cause enormous, lasting unhappiness. Shiv, a first-rate scholar in college, became, as we all expected, a brilliant chemist and climbed over the years to the top of a major research centre. He devoted his life to research projects and adoring research assistants, entrusting most administrative matters to the chief accountant. When several thousands of research funds went missing and so did the accountant, the blame fell onShivand his supposed ineptitude. He took early retirement and went into shame-encrusted oblivion. His only naive mistake was to trust an aide who seemed trustworthy.