What’s the Answer?

by Vishal Anand

Today is Friday, the last working day of the week. I start this day as I start every day – with meditation. I breathe in whatever good this universe has to offer and slowly breathe out all my fears, my anxieties and my concerns. The restive ocean that my mind is begins to quieten, the undercurrent of repressed desires fizzles out and the waves of uncertainty crashing violently on the shores become weak and docile. I attain pure bliss – but this bliss is ephemeral. Very soon, I step out of the house to face reality. The bliss I had attained just a while ago begins to dissolve under the combined onslaught of honking of the automobiles and cacophony of music blaring from the roadside shops. I do not remember how many times I have tried to extend my morning nirvana deeper into the daytime, but I do remember that I have failed every single time – some failures more sudden than others. Intuitively, I have realized that unless I remain in the meditative state the entire day, it’s hard to achieve the bliss I seek.

Meditation is not the answer.

I reach office. My boss has called for a meeting of the team to review the progress of the work done during the week. In the meeting, I present my work with a lot of verve and pride, punctuating my oratory with well-timed pauses and intonations to judge the reaction on my audience’s face. And when I am finished with my elocution, my boss praises me in front of all team members. I feel honoured and acknowledged. But my glee is short-lived and my heart becomes tainted when I see that my boss praises all other team members more effusively or at least in equal measure. I feel genuinely slighted. I do not know whether everyone feels similarly or whether I am the only one with a green, envious streak.

Praise is not the answer.

My friends and I decide to party tonight; after all it has been a long week. At the party, one of my acquaintances introduces me to a lady. Her curly, black hair falls carelessly but purposefully over her exposed shoulder, marking a dazzling contrast with her short, white attire. We get along well – she looks straight into my eyes, sipping and stirring the soda in her glass all along as we chat. But soon, her attention begins to wither and her gaze starts shifting elsewhere. The stirring of the soda becomes increasingly more noisy and artless. My dry wit and drier intellect are not enough to keep her interested for long and she takes her leave.  I recline into a solitary chair in a corner, while she is the life of the party, walking in a field of perfume, mesmerizing those around her.

Admiration from the opposite sex is not the answer.

I get home. There is a video call with my parents on my computer. After the initial euphoria and wonder of being able to see each other live across thousands of miles subside, the conversation trudges along the beaten track. Father questions the direction my career is headed to while mother picks fault with my attire and my hair. I sneer inside at this violation of my independence and intrusion into my personal space. But it does not behoove of me to lose temper this late in the night so I go through the call perfunctorily.

Relationships are not the answer.

I get up late in the morning. I switch on the TV. The World Cup is underway. I loved playing this sport while I was a kid. It gave many heroes, many role models to my generation.   “It does not get any bigger than this”- my TV blares in high-definition audio. That sounds familiar. “This is a historical moment in sport.” I have definitely heard that before. They said the same thing four years ago, and four years before the four years. The talking heads in the TV channel’s studio have changed, the running sneakers on the ground have changed. But the dreams peddled by the advertisers, broadcasted on TV sets and beamed to millions of living rooms around the world have not changed. They have tried to hide and make up for the evanescence and short life of fame by re-packaging it in new glossy paper periodically – each paper glossier than earlier.

Consumerism is not the answer.

From TV I switch to another entrapment of technology, another node in this cobweb of modern life – my computer. I re-read the mail which I had received some days ago, the one that I have already read many times. The email confirms my admission into a prestigious institution of higher learning on foreign shores. The dizzying euphoria which I had felt when I read it for the first time has given way to a more grounded appreciation. By all accounts, this is a tremendous achievement. The admission is intensely competitive and only a handful of applicants from around the globe are admitted. But after admission, the rat race to get good grades will start again. This will be followed by a mad scramble towards another goal- that of landing a decent job after the completion of the course. The picture looks rosy, but only from a distance or on social networks.

Ambition is not the answer.

I do not know what happened, how it turned out like this.  But I am beginning to realize that life, with all its myriad colors and hues, its different moods and whims, has been reduced to an arithmetic progression. How easily we fall into this trap of believing that progress in life is nothing but moving from a small car to a big car to an even bigger car, from a budget phone to a smart phone, from a one-bedroom-house to a duplex flat! But is material progress the answer to man’s quest for meaning in this vast universe? Or are ambition or pleasure or relationships suitable answers? Are any of these the source of ultimate happiness? I wonder. The most ironical paradox is that man has been blessed with the ability to think and pose questions but some answers are still out of his reach. Metaphorically, the universe teases us by giving us a bow and some arrows to shoot but it doesn’t reveal to us the actual target. Perhaps, it wants each one of us to search for our own targets, our own ends, our own answers.

What then is the answer?

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