In pursuit of happiness

Once, during my morning strolls, I happened to meet a small kid playing the same game with the same ball every morning, but he appeared to be very happy and thrilled everytime he kicked the ball and ran to pick up the same.

On my way back, I saw the vegetable vendor who always liked to chit chat with his customers about various happenings. Though he sells the same or sometimes some mix and match depending upon the season, he was so engrossed in his job and he was happy.

That day, I gave an old good dress of mine to my servant maid since it was good and intact. She was delighted at the thought of wearing the dress, and said that she is going to reserve it for a family function.


Just then, I saw my neighbour with her son (four year old) trying to convince him to wear a new dress they had just bought for a party in the evening. He was very adamant in not wearing it and started crying and making a fuss driving his parents mad. He wanted it to be replaced immediately with another . He had 100s of dresses in his cupboard, since my neighbours are a pampering lot and buy him whatever he wishes. When I asked him "Are you not happy your parents have done so much to you, you have got so many dresses? . He answered " No Iam not happy! They have not bought me what I wanted!

Hi bloggers, post your inferences and views on the above happenings. Where does happiness lie?

The three cartoons which we have enjoyed and which our children continue to enjoy i.e. Tom and Jerry , Scooby doo and Powerpuff girls are the products of Hanna Barbera, the duo whose cartoons revolutionized television animations.



William Hanna was Born in US ON July 14th 1910. The world is celebrating his 100th anniversary this month. He dropped out of college and during the Great Depression, he did odd jobs like preparing title cards for silent films. When his talent was noticed, he joined a reputed organization and headed its pen and ink department. In 1930, he hired the MGM Studio where he met Barbera. They teamed together and made a short film "Puss gets the boot". Thus emerged Tom and Jerry. Then came Scooby doo, Power puff girls and so on. He passed away on March 22, 2001. But his characters live for ever to delight the young and old alike.

Humorous communications

Humor is an important ingredient in effective communication. Humor can ease the situation. It enables the communicator to subtly point out some shortcomings or something which if told otherwise would hurt the receiver. Great people had very good sense of humor. Once one such saintly person was approached by a person who claimed himself to be a scholar who can speak on any religious subject with ease. So the saint gave him an opportunity to render discourses on The Bhagavath Gita for a period of one week at a religious place where people gathered to appreciate religious values. On the first day, 50 persons attended the discourse, on the second 25, on the third day it dwindled to 10 persons. So the person became very furious. He approached the saint and told him “ The people here do not have religious sentiments, they do not appreciate good things being told to them, see only ten people came to attend the discourse”. To this the saint replied with a smile, “ Please be patient, at least there were ten people. When Lord Krishna recited the Gita, there was only one person” ( i.e. Arjuna).


There was a foreign delegate who was supposed to address a group of people in the host country. As the foreigner did not know the local language, he was supposed to speak in his mother tongue while a translator will translate his speech. The speech commenced and the translator kept translating the speech. At one point, the foreigner went on narrating a humorous incident for about five minutes. As he used some local slangs the translator could not aptly understand. However, his duty was to translate. So he just told the entire joke in a single sentence. The people immediately burst into a roaring laughter. At this the foreigner became inquisitive. The narration which lasted for five minutes could be translated in a single sentence and got the desired result. How did it happen? When he enquired the translator, he simply quipped, Actually I could not translate your joke, nevertheless, I did not want to disappoint you. So I told the audience, “the delegate has just narrated a joke, please laugh”