Republished from A First Taste of Law archives.

Today morning I woke up and then walked up to my window like I never do. There was a commotion down the street, in front of August Kranti Maidan. The Hare Ramas were dancing on the road. Their hands in the air, looking upwards to the sky, they were jumping silly like kids and chanting with all the energy they could muster – accompanied by a careless simple music that does not demand any skill.
Their infectious happiness caused people on the busy Bombay street to stand and just look at them. I can bet all of them have been wondering if they can just let it loose, start dancing for no reason like the bunch of happy men dancing on the street in front of them.

Nagar sankeertan. It’s a tradition started by Mahaprbhu Nemai ages back which had once taken the shape of a social revolution.
I stood there and told myself – joy is a state of mind, and the mind is mine. Real happiness comes from within, and it needs not be influenced by external factors. Each of those men had a different childhood, different financial status, different problems are life for sure. None of that could hold them back from losing themselves in happiness. Each one’s happiness was restricted only by his own imagination. We can not be happy like that when we presume that to be happy we have to be successful, healthy, wealthy and buy a BMW.
We do many things hoping to be happy someday. We chase mirage after the mirage. Our thirst for happiness often clouds our vision, our decisions, and our strategies. I am trying to imagine how powerful a person is who can separate what he does from his search of happiness. A person who is happy from within is a person who is a soldier unafraid and undeterred by failure or rebuke. He does not do things he does not want to do just so that he can buy happiness in the evening or another day. He works for his true calling, he does only what he wants to do, only what is important to him. Can you see what an edge that gives a person over the rest of the clamouring, selfish world?
How he decides what he wants and what is important is another question.
It’s past lunchtime, I am still in a mental state that will not be tarnished by what is happening around me in this law firm. I will share my joy with everyone I speak to.