Comment

Some years ago I had the chance to work with a French director on a film about India. From the boatmen of Varanasi and the khadi-clad politicos of New Delhi to the mahant of Bodh Gaya and the haute society of Mumbai, there was one question the director of the television series,called Letters from one end of the world never failed to ask: “What does happiness mean to you?” Initially, I thought it was a stupid question, one that would only unleash bromides and platitudes.

How wrong I was. The question usually evoked bafflement, or raised eyebrows. But after an initial hiccup most of the people suddenly opened up as if a glacier sitting in their hearts had melted. After all, there were no rehearsed answers to this question that seemed to have come out of the blue.

But, almost inevitably people began to talk about what really mattered to them. Happiness, like love, is word that resonates with most people. An Open Sesame if you will.

There is a reason I bring up the subject of happiness and our eternal pursuit of it. Frothy hedonism is at high tide in our media. Were you to go by just what you see at weddings and parties or read on Page3 and in lifestyle supplements, life is one big party. Moreover, the new mantra seems to be shop-till-you-drop. Yet reports about suicides regularly appear in the media—usually a few paragraphs tucked away in some corner of the paper.

I am not talking about the almost-quotidian reports about farmers killing themselves because of poverty. That is a subject by itself. Not a day goes by without a young boy or girl in our country —who seem apparently content to those around them — ending his or her life. Depression often lies just beneath the bubbly veneer sported by many of our youth. “We may look as if we are made of lead or steel but we are as fragile as eggs. Crack us a bit and darkness will ooze out,” a teenager once told me.

Something does not fit. On one hand there is the much-touted incredible and shining India, (with Shah Rukh Khan embodying the resurgent New India) much of it on a buying spree. And on the other hand you have the scourge of depression that’s creeping up on both the young and old. Can we presume, at the risk of tossing up a cliché, that wealth can’t buy you happiness?

Guardian columnist Madeline Bunting recently discussed the relationship between hyperconsumerism and happiness. Referring to a graph used by the US psychologist Tim Kasser at a recent Whitehall seminar, she wrote: “One line, representing personal income, has soared over the past 40 years; the other line marks those who describe themselves as “very happy”, and has remained the same. The gap between the two yawns ever wider. All this consumption is not necessary to our happiness.”

A psychoanalyst friend tells me that insecurity is fuelling the epidemic of materialism in India. Intensifying the insecurity is a highly competitive society still in the process of shedding old traditions while it still has to find new ones. We attempt to fill the void with all the new goodies tantalisingly offered by our gurus of the advertising world. Malls, the new palaces of pleasure, feed this frenzy of consumption.

Analysts and sociologists tell you that happiness — or the absence of being miserable — can only be attained if your have a measure of self-esteem and good relationships with family and friends. Yet that essential sense of self-worth has probably become even more elusive in today’s world when you are continuously being told you are what you wear — or own.

In an ad, a young woman turns her face in sheer horror and disgust when she looks at a colleague who is sporting unbranded eye glasses. Well, our young executive can go out and by a branded pair of specs. But somebody in the next cubicle will be wearing an even more exclusive brand. Alas, you can’t win.

Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com