Book: The Happines Manual
Author: Aruna Joshi
Publisher: Embassy Books International
Pages: 166; Price: Rs. 250
Some books you read and rue
And leave them half way through
But a few are so good
That read you should
Years ago I read this quatrain; liked it and eventually forgot. But while reading Aruna Joshi’s The Happiness Manual, almost erased memory of these four lines suddenly became verdant and those words again got emblazoned on the celluloid of my mind. Yes, this book by Aruna should be read.
Agreed, there’s a tsunami of self-help and happiness books in the market and most of them contain the same old stuff, repackaged and refurbished, but hers is (dynamically) different. It doesn’t talk of happiness as something elusive or difficult to come by.
Happiness eludes, but is also attainable if sought meaningfully and not pursued mindlessly. Nowhere in this slim book, a reader does find a condescendingly didactic attitude of Aruna. With the help of very interesting real life episodes and anecdotes, she has rammed home her point.
Twenty One ways to attain permanent happiness in life and approach can’t be called an expensive proposition. Rather, it’s an expansive experience that leaves you wholly contended by the time you reach the last page of Aruna’s book. Victorian poet and novelist Thomas Hardy said, “Happiness is but an occasional episode in the painful drama of life.” But this is a trifle negative opinion. Happiness is a permanent human trait that gets eclipsed and obfuscated by our cynicism. To be happy is to be human and vice versa.
Aruna has realised this and practised the ways that she has explained and elaborated in her book. The experiences described in the book aren’t vicarious. They are real and this is the most salient feature of The Happiness Manual.
Even those who are always grumpy, gruffy and perennially gloomy will be chuffed if they get to read Aruna’s book. In fine, this book is a classic example of encapsulated wisdom: Wisdom in a capsule. Read and stay eternally blissful.