The Secret to Happiness

Far from being any one thing, it defies definition, is ephemeral, and its pursuit is eternal. All the money can’t buy it, yet a simple thing can trigger it

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

Nilesh Shah always thought he had the good life. As managing director of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company, one of India’s largest financial services group, money was never an issue. Initially, material pursuits like getting a good job, a new car, a swank house made him happy. But, as he soon discovered, “it followed a law of diminishing returns.” When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country, Shah joined a group of citizens in Mumbai to help find hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and transport for the seriously afflicted. It made him realise that true happiness “was to bring smiles to other people’s faces”. He then sings a few lines from an old Mukesh song to sum up his feelings: Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar/ kisi ka dard mil sake toh le udhaar (Give yourself up to bring a smile to someone’s face, offer a shoulder to share someone’s pain).

For Shah, it was a cathartic experience, one that transformed his life and quest for happiness. But, he adds with a smile, “Eating Gujju food is still bliss for me.” Others have different definitions of what brings them joy. Among the things that make author Chetan Bhagat happy are “a good night’s sleep, a walk in nice, breezy weather and being with people I love”. For actor Pankaj Tripathi, seeing “nature in its pristine form” gives him immense pleasure. But lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar regards any attempt at defining the feeling as futile. “Is it possible to find a universal definition of happiness or even define it?” he asks. “It is the feeling that holds the meaning, not the fact of its existence.”

Money is only one of the many servants of happiness because having plenty of it does not guarantee bliss to its possessors