Nuggets to consider for happiness in the New Year : Jyotirmaya Sharma

By Dilip -

1. Do not read newspapers in the morning. Doing so ruins your day. If you want to follow the news, you will have to read several, since no single paper reports even bare facts accurately. If you manage to evolve further in life, do not read newspapers at all. Try picking up last year's paper of the same day and you will realise that nothing substantial has changed. If you cannot do away with newspapers, try reading them in the afternoon and you'll realise how trivial the news of the world happens to be. Moreover, the prose in most newspapers is ghastly and turgid and you do serious damage to your linguistic skills by reading them. Buy them, if you must, on Sunday, not because Sunday papers would be any different, but you need papers to line your cupboards.

2. Do not watch news on television. If you are addicted to watching the news channels, watch them on the 'mute' mode. The ticker gives you all the news and the visuals. Why must you hear men and women shouting and screaming at each other? Once their voices are muted, I promise you they will look comical while wildly gesticulating on the screen. If you are starved of entertainment, watch a Govinda film instead or even one of those millions of reality shows. Dolly Bindra of Bigg Boss is infinitely preferable to Kiran Bedi. If you still insist on watching news channels, watch them in the morning or in the afternoon when the so-called debates don't happen and when the nation is not perpetually angry or demanding answers.

3. Do not light candles. If you do, you will burn your fingers badly. We get carried away by instant causes and concerns and march in support. Do not feel left out. A degree of healthy scepticism and conservatism is better than having marched for the wrong cause. People will tell you have no conscience and no sense of social responsibility. Ignore them. Remind them of the massive rallies that Hitler organised. It is better to walk alone and regret than to walk with a mob and open the door for intolerance and genocide. There will always be people who frown upon your fierce individuality, but at least as a radical individual you will be responsible to yourself.

Ideas

4. Do not get carried away by abstractions. Neither nation nor caste nor religion is worth anything if you cannot make a difference in your neighbourhood. If the garbage piles in your neighbourhood, removing corruption is no big deal. The civic ought to be the political. Politicians and demagogues will always tell you that the nation or religion or caste or language or region is higher than civility, good manners, and empathy.

5. Do not read junk. This day and age belongs to false peddlers of hope. Stop reading the 'Do It Yourself ' books for the soul. The soul is yet another grand fiction. Paulo Coelho will not be able to save it for you. Neither will Chetan Bhagat...

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