A couple of years back I was watching the Academy Awards ceremony
on TV. Roberto Benigni was announced as the best actor for his
role in Life Is Beautiful. After his trademark gauche
tricks, like walking away from the stage instead of toward it,
he finally received the Oscar. Then he started his acceptance
speech.
"First I must thank my parents for giving me the greatest gift
of all," he said, then he paused for effect and dropped the bomb,
"poverty."
The glitterati were laughing, but I was hit by the sudden realization
that he was dead serious.
I sat up, stunned.
My son and daughter were born in India. My wife, Maria, and
I moved to the United States when the children were 11 and 13.
They were thrilled by the chance to come to the greatest country
on earth. They grew up in a small town where the cultural highlight
was watching a movie once a month in the palm-leaf-thatched cinema
hall that leaked during monsoon, where toys or new dresses were
a rarity given only on birthdays, and where the only tourist spots
we visited were their grandparents' homes.
Whenever we ask our children, whose five years of American life
have been replete with Big Macs, Orlando trips and 3-D video games,
what their happiest moments have been, they go back to the humble
times we had in India. They mention things like the four of us
sharing one chocolate bar, catching fish at grandpa's pond, eating
free rice soup at church on Good Fridays, swinging in my old car
tire. They bring up several other such paltry things, which my
wife and I are trying hard to forget. But for Benigni there was
no forgetting. He seemed to be thriving on it. Furthermore, he
had the chutzpah to declare the enriching quality of penury to
one of the wealthiest audiences in the world. And they laughed,
totally missing his point. It reminded me of Mark Twain confessing
in his old age, " All I did was tell the truth, and everyone laughed."
I once asked my mother, who, with my father, had struggled through
financial difficulties and other hardships to bring up eight kids,
whether she was happy in those days. She said they were so busy
that she did not have the time for such a luxury as being unhappy
or depressed. The little leisure time she and my father had, she
said, was used playing Scrabble or going out on the beach and
watching the soothing evening waves while the kids made sand castles
till the last hues faded in the sky. Free but rich moments.
Recently on National Public Radio, during a discussion about
happiness, a caller said we feel unhappy nowadays because there
is a lot of pressure on us to be happy. It's like a commercial
for a Caribbean cruise, insisting that is the only way you can
experience paradise. If I don't own Nike Air Jordans, I have no
right to feel like a man. Same case with shirts -- has to be designer
shirts if I am to be worth my salt.
These are the times when I feel like going back to my village,
where I don't have to wear a shirt or shoes and where a haircut
costs 25 cents, which includes shaving the underarm, as it is
done in our home courtyard. It's cutting-edge service minus the
unnecessary technology.
During the past five years, for some strange reason, I became
convinced that happiness comes from being rich, like babies come
from being pregnant. So I have been impregnating myself with common
symbols of wealth. Alas, I just kept getting overweight, but not
at the right place. It was at this juncture that my son, Anand,
who was reading Tao of Physics, came up with an observation
a Chinese intellect made quite a while back -- about 600 B.C.
What he said woke me up from my temporary illusion of grandeur.
I saw the light, or at least a semblance of it. Here are his words:
"One who knows he has enough, is rich." -- Lao Tzu.
* * *
Jayant Kamicheril markets spices in North America for a Danish
food company.
July 2003
