Shri Divyanshu Shekhar
(Young author Shri Divyanshu Shekhar writes poems, stories, plays and scripts in Hindi and English. His first collection of poems “Zindagi – ek chalchitra” was published in May 2017 and first English Novel “Too Close – Too Far” in December 2018. Today we present his article “Struggle for Happiness”.)
☆ Struggle for Happiness ☆
It was a beautiful Sunday morning.
It was drizzling outside. A man was sitting in his balcony with his cup of hot coffee and enjoying the weather.
Suddenly, he saw few people are working in front of a temporary house to make a strong base of a new building and his romantic thoughts and expressions started changing.
But why? And which kinds of emotions, he felt later? Scare or Happiness? Empathy or Proud? or anything else?
He felt empathy with them. He is also a migrant like them, who change places to earn money for their responsibilities. He lives in a well-structured and furnished flat with all the luxurious things and they are living in a temporary house where few bricks are removed from the wall for ventilation, no electricity, and without any modern facilities.
He felt surprised because he is an engineer but he never went in a workshop without proper safety measure but they are cutting steel bars without any precautions and even without any hesitation.
He felt happy in his flat because he has a fear of snakes but they are living in such an area where there are high chances of getting those reptiles. He follows a healthy diet for his good health but they eat what they get. He does exercises daily but they have no time for practicing Yoga and lifting weights during workouts. They just do physical work for the whole day as part of their job irrespective of weather.
He felt jealous because even without such luxury and relaxation, their sleep is deeper and their smiles are wider with whom he always struggles. They have better physical strength and brave heart.
Someone said correctly that “It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art”.
He felt scared by keeping himself in their positions. It’s a bitter truth that we all have grown literally afraid to be poor. Even we despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life and maintain peace. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition.
He knows all the facts and at last, he stood up and went inside his room. He felt thankful to God and proud of his parents because he knows his current situation and comfort in this tough world is a precious gift and outcome of their parents’ struggle, and he has to maintain this tradition.
© Divyanshu Shekhar
Kolkata (West Bengal)
