Life’s Magic

Happiness has to be discovered. It has to be created especially since we live in a world that ineluctably takes a perverse pleasure in injecting misery into our veins relentlessly. There is a political system which impinges on us with its taxes and taxonomies. There is the society with its unforgiving creeds and codes. And there is our religion with its insatiably hungry gods.

Then there are our personal sorrows and anxieties. Our very genetic makeup can be our worst enemy. As one writer (whose name I can’t recall now) said, “There is a man within me who is angry with me.” I have had tremendous problems confronting that angry man within me.

I have struggled with myself for years and years. I never liked me and I always found it difficult to believe if someone told me that I was a loveable person. My wife’s boundless patience with the angry man within me helped to tame the anger. Her patience with me taught me to be patient with my students. Her love taught me the real magic of life.

When I was offered an opportunity to write some positive posts in my blog, the word ‘magic’ kept bombarding my neurons with a frenzy that only the angry man within me could grasp. I embraced the challenge whole-heartedly though soon I found myself running short of time because of the extra duties that my profession as a teacher threw on the way as the Board exams were over and the evaluation work started. I didn’t want to disappoint the angry man within me, however. The result is this book, a 26 page short ebook, that has been downloaded by more than 80 people in a single day.

I was thrilled when a young reader sent me the following WhatsApp message today:

I’m not sure I deserve such appreciation. But every writer likes to be read. That authorial greed made me write this post. Just to present my book to the readers of this blog. The book was a humble attempt, though written in a hurry, to discover happiness, to create happiness for the angry man within me. If it strikes a harmonious chord in more hearts, I consider myself amply rewarded.

There is one person who kept on telling me almost every day in April, when the 26 chapters of the book were posted in my blog, that her life was undergoing a positive change because of my posts. Thank you, dear friend, you made a difference in my life.