"It was right then, that”, says Chris Gardner in his train of thoughts in ‘the pursuit of Happyness’ (no that’s not misspelled), “I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson in the declaration of Independence, in a part, about our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I remember thinking, how did he know to put the pursuit part in there…”. And that’s where I, started thinking really, how did he know to put the pursuit part in it, but before I could think further, Chris Gardner continued, “…may be happiness is something that we can only pursue…”
When the first time I saw the movie, I was fascinated by the character, Chris Gardner, played by the veteran actor Will Smith, plainly because he displays courage to endure the hardships of life in the pursuit of happiness and finally emerges as a winner.
But it was second time that I got to know something that raises a question to us as a nation in present day world. Something that we as a nation need to ask ourselves, Are we happy? Or does India need a Will Smith to remind us what Mahatma Gandhi said on 15th August 1947, in Calcutta, “I would like to work for an India, where the poorest shall feel that it is their country and in whose making they have an equal say, where there is no rich class of people no poor class of people,where all communities shall live in perfect harmonyt.This is the India of my dreams.” Perhaps Mahatma was giving a mantra to Indians, which they should remember, that they would work for an India of their own dream and in that dream pursue their own happiness.
Chris Gardner goes on to say, “Thomas Jefferson mentions happiness, a couple of times in the declaration of Independence…, they seem like a strange word to be in that document.” Strange it may seem, this strange thing is something that we forgot to think of, while guaranteeing all sophisticated things like sovereign, socialist, democratic, republic and lot many to ourselves as citizens of India. How can we forget this strange thing called, Happiness, which every soul on this earth pursues? A beggar sitting on the side lanes may not be able to tell you the meaning of any of those sophisticated things but he would definitely understand happiness, and he can tell you what he does for the pursuit of his happiness. And we forgot that word.
In the 60th year of our freedom, we are still fighting to get our right to the pursuit of happiness. For some, this pursuit is food, for some it is a debt free life, for some it is some other thing. We may be shining at a brilliant 17000 on sensex but is that proportional to the Happiness Index of our nation?
We all are like Chris Gardner and like him, when we see rest of the world, we think, “They all look so damn happy”, and ask ourselves, “Why couldn’t I look like that”, and then we find ourselves asking them, hesitatingly , “What do you do and How do you do?”. Although the answer was given to us long before we grew old enough to understand the meaning of ‘pursuit of happiness’ on 15th August 1947. All we could have done was just protect that dream. On this day let us stand together pledge that we would incorporate the unstated right to ‘pursuit of happiness’ in Mahatma’s speech into our system.
Ammar Husain Zaidi
Written on 2nd October
