Thank God! We have “Sorrow” in our life.

Assume a life which is joyous all through. No sadness, not even a hint of sorrow. Must be such a desirable way to live a life. But, hold on, are you sure?

Wasn’t a horse ride to a distant locality a privilege for the nobles in the medieval era? Sure, those guys on the horseback must have felt the happiness of being privileged. Put today's privileged ones like Mr. Tata on a horse back for his next journey to Jamshedpur from Kolkata! Surely that could be the saddest thing possible for Mr. Tata. So what is happiness? Surely not the horse ride. Is being privileged synonymous to happiness? Then why on earth a privileged man like Mr. Tata spent sleepless nights while a handful of terrorists terrorised his hotel inmates. His being privileged was certainly not threatened by the terrorists. So then happiness is not even being privileged.

Have you ever seen the bauls of Bengal singing in the streets of Shantiniketan? Didn’t they look like a bunch of happy guys? Are they privileged in the same sense as Mr. Tata?

The common perception of happiness being a function of privileged life is certainly not true. Then what is happiness?

Suppose you live a life which is happy as per common perception. You keep on living the same life everyday, every month, every year, every decade. The same “happy” life. No deviation at all. Think about it. Will you get bored? Well if I were you, I would most certainly get bored. Though in common perception you still live a happy life, but within you you are bored. Well, well, you are happy for the world but unhappy within yourself?

Remember the unhappy princes looking for happiness on the streets of Rome? Well her happiness was in nothing but being common. Sadness and happiness are perceptions relative to each other. Unless you are sad you can never be happy! Because the perception of happiness comes from the perception of sadness. Bible preached: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Sadness is just the other side of happiness. If there is sadness there will be happiness or vice versa.

Let’s talk about three lives. Red, Blue and Green. The Red life had extreme sadness. Hence had extreme happiness, the Blue life had sadness but much lesser than the Red life. Hence happiness experienced by the Blue life was not as high as that of Red life. But the Green life remained in the same state hence did not experience happiness or sadness. We may call that boredom. Like the princes in the film “Roman Holiday” experienced, till she decided to break out of it.

So shall we not say, Thank God! We have “Sorrow” in our life!

- Debjit Biswas