Let life be without unhappiness

There has never been as much unhappiness in human life as today. The fear of having less and desire of having more has contributed as much. To fret about something over which you have no control brings unnecessary distress upon yourself. Peering at the world today, it seems that there is turbulence ahead, because of tectonic shifts in economy and society which is leading to excesses of exploitation and indulgence. Wading through this maze may seem a way out, but unhappiness lingers all across and all along.      

Happiness in itself is nothing but is an emotive feeling that is attributable. Yet, one would like to get such a feeling. It generates a sense of self-esteem, which in itself is an important source of human happiness. To see that others hold us in high esteem can be a source of contentment. No surprise, therefore, most human beings like to display their better selves to the world to seek happiness and contentment. Much of our life is spent in finding such an elusive process. But former World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu thinks that reason, and logic, can guide humans to achieve happiness.       

It seems that reasoning can only take us closer to finding out what makes us happy, but that too on the surface. The capacity to reason, says Basu, is not only the most underrated but valued too. That’s why a lot of human woes, social and economic, stems from the absence of reasoning. But reasoning seems to have its limits, as happiness is beyond the purview of reason and logic. The human ability to reason falters when humans have to apply logic to human emotions. In this interconnected world, more than reasoning it is the influence of togetherness that need to be factored in. Even if interconnection causes happiness, it will last till interconnection lasts.

One would expect us to reason out of the root cause of unhappiness. In theory, it might seem possible but not in practice. It is beyond redemption when there is more than one reason for it or the reason itself is beyond repair. And we are not making any serious efforts as more than 50 percent of our time is spent in repeating our habit(s) Come to think about it, a remarkable number of habits get repeated every day and we are often proud of it. Ironically, most of us believe our habits lead us to take right and happy decisions. 

Drawing on her expertise as a clinical psychologist with a masters in neuroscience, Dr Sophie Mort concludes that in nine out of ten cases our habits do us good only in few cases. Who wants to follow sheep, but the system is so programmed that each one ends up following the flock? Around 2.8 billion people on Facebook, 2.3 billion on You Tube, and an estimated 1.8 billion on Instagram, whether qualified or not, share their views on living a happy life. Whether or not they are happy remains an open question!

Happiness has turned out to be a big industry. Not only have there been the Ministries opened to address the crucial issue of happiness, but happiness clinics have also opened up and happiness therapies too are doing a good business. Yet, happiness remains as elusive. ‘Get married; the research says it will make you happier’; ‘Ignore marriage, it’s likely to end in divorce’; ‘Buy a house and get on the housing ladder;’ ‘Live in a van, don’t do what society wants you to do;’ ‘You are enough as you are.’ Messages like this help avoid having regrets, the idea is to live life true to oneself. The oral therapies of the kind ease one out of status quo, though temporarily. 

A huge part our lives flows through our habit selves, says Prof. Wendy Wood. This is that part of us, which is powerful, which is reliable, and which is always there. We are stuck to our habits, quite often there is hardly any time to reason out of it. We all live habitually already, without being seriously aware of it. And because of that, a big part of who are you and why we do what we do is often ignored or is taken for granted. The many ways things could be done better get missed out. Samuel Johnson had rightly remarked: ‘The diminutive chain of habits are seldom enough to be felt, till they are too strong to be broken’.

The challenge is to avoid search for happiness, but to get rid of unhappiness. Let life be without unhappiness, remarked the Buddha.                                       

Reason to be Happy
by Kaushik Basu
Penguin RandomHouse, London
Extent: 214, Price: Rs. 500.

(Un)Stuck
by Sophie Mort
Simon&Schuster, New Delhi
Extent: 274, Price: Rs. 699.

Good Habits, Bad Habits
by Wendy Wood
Macmillan, London
Extent: 308; Price: Rs. 425. 

First published as Bibliography in The Hindu on March 20, 2025.

The unassuming grain

By 2050, cities will feed 70 per cent of the world population, which will by then have reached 9 billion. Though maize is most produced in the world, it is rice that is universally consumed. With a milled rice production volume of 522 million tonnes, rice is a staple food for over half of the world’s population. It is particularly important for countries like China and India, who are not only its the largest producers but consumers too. It is consumed in various forms, from steamed rice to rice flour, and is integral to many cultural cuisines and traditions. 

Few foods are as universal as rice, yet its story is anything but ordinary. ‘Without rice, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook.’ From the ancient paddies to kitchens and markets around the world, this unassuming grain has become both a dietary staple and a cultural cornerstone. In this engaging account, Chef Renee Marton unravels the rich history of rice, tracing its remarkable journey through centuries of trade, migration and culinary innovation. The origins of some of the rice dishes go as far back as the Moghul dynasties. Little gets realized that rice is a principal ingredient of Budweiser. 

Spread over five chapters the book explores cultural and culinary value of rice, influence of ancient trade on rice, its spread in the new world, and the emergence of the modern consumer. Cultural customs and rice rituals are no less significant. Rice and fertility are almost synonymous, bride and groom have it as the first food eaten. Rice explores how rice has shaped societies and cuisines, from sustaining mighty empire to inspiring arts. While Christ may not have ever talked about it, Krishna, Confucius, Buddha, and Muhammad had special liking for it. 

Rice has a fascinating history which began in the foothills of the Himalayan, in Southeast Asia, southern China and Indonesia. Its domestication evolved in India and China and subsequently spread in east Asia and rest of the world. The rice grains were reported growing some 15,000 years ago, and were put to non-edible uses as well. Glutinous rice, cooked as thick paste and mixed with lime and sand, was used as mortar that made up the Great Wall of China. In its journey through long history, rice also fed soldiers and prevented famines.

The importance of rice to society has been studied extensively. Rice has followed society wherever it went or evolved. And when it felt settled, rice pudding studded with raisins and dry fruits was served. For Chef Marton, the global history of rice is a valuable study of rice rituals and customs. Mouthwatering and tantalizing recipes from across the globe are not listed without reason, as these offer a captivating exploration of how this humble grain continues to define and connect us. Such has been the role of recipes that the widely popular sushi was acceptable as a form of tax payment, way back in 718 CE. 

Rice is a the highly adaptable cereal grass that grows in most environments. Irrigated rice accounts for 50 per cent of cultivated rice and represents 75 per cent of the little over 700 million tonnes of rice harvested. Under the changing climatic situation, however, irrigated rice has come under serious question. Water is a limiting fact, and so is methane emission from irrigated paddy fields. Methane is more potent as a greenhouse gas; it traps around 120 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Rice will have to go through these challenges in the coming years.     

De-methanation has emerged as a new challenge for growing rice. Will rice be a less water guzzling crop, that will also promote de-methanation is the million-dollar question? The global history of rice does not address the emerging challenges. Rice talks about it as an ancient crop and focuses on the changes it has gone through the new world. However, imminent climatic challenges are what will determine the future of rice. 

Rice: A Global History
by Renee Marton
Pan Macmilllan, New Delhi
Extent: 143, Price: Rs. 450.

First published in the HinduBusiness Line on March 16, 2025. 

Failed reinvention

Set in Texas, this is a story of an Indian immigrant family of four, each of whom has broken free of the shackles of so-called happy co-existence called a family. Suresh and Lata have drifted after decades of marriage, and their grown-up kids Priya and Nikesh have set their sails in search of finding themselves. Navigating online dating, Suresh meets an attractive woman while Lata finds a professor at the college flirting with her newfound independence as a librarian. Nikesh pretends a seemingly perfect marriage whereas Priya harbors a clandestine affair. Each to their own, but not entirely as each one keeps a close eye on the other. Though the family is turned upside down, the glue of relationship still sticks. 

When relationships turn into rituals, lack of imagination triggers their downfall. Even in togetherness, there remains a strong sense of loneliness. Under such conditions, a part of everybody remains hidden in such failed relationships to act like a virtual time bomb ticking to rip things apart.  Feeling suffocating in each other’s company, a part of both Suresh and Lata hoped that there was actually someone out there in the world capable of making them feel joy, maybe even love. In divorce, they found a perfect opportunity for self-reflection and re-valuation. 

A bad relationship may be a two-way street, but divorce isn’t a bad marriage at the end. In this bighearted debut, Deepa Vardarajan pitches the narrative on the premise that every arrangement in life carries with it the sadness, and that there is a space and scope for reigniting relationships all over gain. Nothing is lost till it is lost. In this witty family tale the question that runs through it is: will the loyalty that once rooted the family be strong enough to draw them back together? Will the family members rise above their personal fulfilment, family entanglements, and reignited dreams?

One cannot fail to admire the layered complexity of this beautiful novel about a flawed yet unforgettable family—the interlocking ironies and wounds and strivings for love and clarity and accomplishment and growth, all so deeply embedded in the cultural milieu of the immigrant family. Every character in this engrossing story is as distinct as real, and one can easily draw similarities from daily life. Late Bloomers is a work of delightful, engaging reading.

In a moving narrative, Deepa Vardarajan details the internal predicaments of its characters as they come to terms with the stark realities of life. Their coming together is no less dramatic, the whole family gets to uncover one another’s secrets, confront the limits of love, and explore life’s second chances. The truth of life is unraveled to each one of them in its own little way. Late Bloomers may not have a happy ending to the story, but a promising beginning for sure.

There is a collective learning, and acceptance of common follies as a family. Everyone is found guilty of telling untruths – if not to one another, then to themselves. Certainly, everyone in family is found guilty of that. But probably everyone in the whole world is. Most of the time, what we think of as truth is threaded with self-serving distortions. Late Bloomers has everything you may ask for in a novel.  

Late Bloomers 
by Deepa Vardarajan
Random House, New York 
Extent: 352, Price: Rs. 650.

First published in Deccan Herald on March 16, 2025.

The footprints of wisdom and knowledge

Nalanda Mahavira may exist today only as ruins of old temples and monasteries; its legacy has an intellectual history that endures beyond its material existence. It may have ceased to exist in the early fourteenth century, but its reputation as a place of learning has spread across geographies ever since. Great scholars made significant contribution in the fields of philosophy, science, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and architecture. Notable among them were Nagarjuna, who advocated the philosophy of emptiness and, Aryabhata, the father of Indian mathematics. Much like Greece, Nalanda was a seat of learning in the east.

Son of the soil Abhay K brings to light the illustrious past of Nalanda and argues that its growing footprints in Asia, Europe, America and Australia will help it reach even farther in times to come. It was the greatest residential university of its kind with an age-old tradition of knowledge co-creation to overcome hatred and anger for achieving inner peace. Not without reason, Nalanda was an acknowledged seat of learning then. It still holds the potential to become a philosophical guide that incorporates the past wisdom into daily modern life.

Nalanda has been largely reduced to mounds of the then monasteries, but it does reflect that the leftover architecture of the time had attributes of an institution of learning which was then known as Mahavihara. The idea of a university is generally considered European but the advent of universities at Blogna, Paris, and Oxford during the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries were no different from Nalanda. The evolution of a Vihara, founded by Emperor Ashoka, into a well laid Mahavihara, inspired the courtyard structure in colleges and universities. Such a courtyard, argues the author, played a key role in advancing the recursive argument and scientific enquiry and expects that such scholastic method continues to fuel oral and written public debates.

The book chronicles the rise, fall and rebirth of Nalanda, the iconic seat of learning in Bihar. Its footprints seem to be growing across the world, representing an intriguing continuity of the Mahavihara. Overwhelmed by its multidimensional scholarly richness as evidenced by the intense academic engagement between past luminaries and foreign scholars, Abhay traces the new landscape in carving out the future of Nalanda. Grand in vision and vast in its scope, Nalanda University came into being in September 2014 as a multi-country international center to revive and relive the values that the Mahavihara once stood for.

Though a decade is no time to undertake a true assessment of a university, the academic credentials for it to excel as a seat of high learning seems somewhat elusive. While the upcoming campus might seem impressive for its design and layout on 455 acres of land in Rajgir, infrastructure alone cannot uphold the grandeur of its projected philosophical vision. The new university campus, in close proximity to the ruins of the majestic past, may hold some strategic advantage, but the logistics disadvantages are too many to be overlooked.

Rajgir and Nalanda were the ancient political, economic, intellectual and philosophical centers of ancient India which had all the necessary conditions for establishing the centers for higher learning and institutionalizing the tradition of scholarly debates and discussions. Today, it only has a historical value with a rich cultural past. Abhay should be credited for putting aside the past mysteries of the place in telling the credible story of Nalanda Mahavihara. It may have played a key role in the spread of Nalanda-grown philosophies across the east.

Nalanda is a place of immense historical and cultural significance, which the book brings to light. It is time that Nalanda creates a consciousness to grow.

Nalanda
by Abhay K
Penguin Random House, New Delhi
Extent:193. Price: Rs 699.

First published in the Hindu BusinessLine on March 07, 2025.