My Quest for Happy Life

By Giridhar Alwar

This is story of Aaryan who comes to terms with life and love, as he undergoes various trials and tribulations, which turn him from a callow lad to a man. He looks forward to problems as stepping stones to fulfillment.
Aaryan is disillusioned when his father, whom he hero-worships, leaves them and goes away. The death of his mother is a turning point, when he realizes that he and his sister, Tara, are now alone in the world. However, Tara too moves away to find the love of her life. Aaryan's own relationship with Ishwarya leaves him desolate.
However, Aaryan has a strange love-hate relationship with his god, who, he believes, gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Aaryan fulfils his destiny, by accomplishing his aims in life, finally realizing that happiness comes from within, and is enhanced further when one makes others happy.
A story of self-realization and fulfillment…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9789352061822

Book preview

My Quest

for Happy

Life

Giridhar Alwar

Notion Press

Old No. 38, New No. 6

McNichols Road, Chetpet

Chennai - 600 031

First Published by Notion Press 2015

Copyright © Giridhar Alwar 2015

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-93-52061-82-2

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Dedicating this book to

My lovely parents;

To the brave hearts of the World;

To the people who make their parents happy;

To the courageous children fighting against their fate and

Supporting their families;

Last but not least, to the people who supported me.

Author’s Note

The way that you think, leads your life.

If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if you think

yourselves strong, strong you will be.

—Swami Vivekananda

It’s the greatest offence to think of ourselves as weak. If we think we are weak, we will not even make a step towards fulfilment.

If we think of struggles in a journey, we cannot even take a step to start it.

Start the journey with confidence not with fear, with belief in yourself, not with other negative factors. Then see the difference; you can find yourself alone in your path with the greatest attitude.

It’s better to be alone in your path by having faith in your own tasks, rather following thousands of people without having confidence in what you are doing.

Self-reliance is the one which will help you all the time. That can guide you in any situation. There is no such great difference between success and failure. There would be a one mark difference if I could differentiate it in an easy way.

In another way, success and failure are the two sides of the wall. It is possible to fail in almost all the situations in life. Smaller efforts will bring you success when you will be on the top of the wall.

Once you fail you will have to spend a lot of efforts and time; it might take a whole life time to reach the top of the wall to succeed.

No one consider the guy who fails continuously, and people lose their hope when they get negative compliments from others when they are stuck in worse situations. Very few take those negative compliments as their motivation, achieve what they want to and show what they can. These are the leaders in our terminology.

It only matters how quickly we come out of the destructive circumstances, how easily we handle the issues.

Using a boy, Aaryan, I am trying to describe problems, the basic life building bricks, and the only things that can change a person in a disciplined manner, even in the absence of guidance.

Everyone can classify people in their own perspective. According to me, there are mainly three kinds of people - those who are afraid of everything, others who fear something, and last but not the least, those who fear nothing.

I am submitting that the boy, Aaryan, belongs to one of the three classifications. You can tell me what that one might be, after reading this book.

Prologue

What the heck is wrong with this bloody life?

Always routine, struggles, miseries; happy moments found nowhere, no money and nothing, how can I lead a life like this for so long?

All are doing well with their lives; so why not me?

Why do you test my patience all the time? Not only me, but my whole family is struggling because of your magical play.

I just wanted to ask him, but he is nowhere! Each time I framed these sentences to shoot, he had shown something else which shut my mouth and thoughts at the same time.

My parents were not in a position to fulfil my basic needs and I was not in a position to insist on getting what I needed, like other children, as my family’s current status was known to me. I was offended at God, and feeling helpless.

Then one day, a boy came to me. I came out of the sad world where I was thinking about the miserable situation that I was facing.

He was in his school uniform that was worn at some places. He was selling ‘samosas’ (snacks) after his school timings at six in the evening.

Brother, do you want a samosa? he asked me.

No, dear, I don’t need one, I said.

Please take some, brother; are you waiting for someone? These samosas are very hot and delicious! he continued.

I felt pity for him. Ok, how much is it? I asked him.

Four pieces for Rs 10/- he said.

I gave him Rs 5/-. Have two samosas yourself, brother, and take this. I am not in a mood to have them now, I said to him.

Give this money to some physically handicapped person, brother; I don’t need your charity! he said.

I felt ashamed of my foolish deed, at having hurt his self-respect by showing pity. I was really mesmerized with his attitude.

Sorry, brother! I didn’t mean to insult you, and I’m really sorry. Please give me four pieces. I gave him Rs 10/- and bought four pieces. I congratulated him on his attitude and wished him good luck.

Bye, brother, see you once again, I said to him.

"Bye, bye!" he said. His deep smile dragged me away from the illusion that I was in trouble.

Even though I knew the philosophy behind the problem, I blamed god so many times; but he was an ultimate source of patience. The Almighty, to whom I asked the questions, had shown me that guy who widened my thoughts.

He got me out of the mood by comparing me with some others who were worse off than me. Hence, I just followed the way he had shown me to find the meaning of my life.

Within 10 days I joined a part time job to fulfil my needs, instead of blaming him.

Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

Prologue

1. In My Dream

2. That’s My Dad

3. She Could Have Died…

4. Omg! Is This So Called Hell?

5. The First Shock

6. Hurrah! I Made It

7. Dad Versus Dad

8. The Honour

9. The Wrong Step

10. It Went Wrong Once Again

11. The Counselling

12. The Third Day in College

13. Tears Rolled Down My Cheeks

14. It Happened Like That

15. Nectar Or What?

16. She Meant Everything to Me

17. My Sweet Memories With Her Autograph

18. I Hated Myself After That

19. Within Seven Minutes I Understood Who I Was

20. It Became Very Hard

21. Betrayal or Justice?

22. All I Had Was Me, No One Else

23. The Final Decision, Love Or Life?

24. Yahoo! I Picked It Up.

25. It Was Amazing

26. Broken Bonds

27. Life Is A Question To Be Solved

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

1

In My Dream

Iwas exhausted with my work, having clocked several hours straight since morning.

Moreover, on a Sunday.

I went home at ten in the night and parked my cycle. I rushed into the kitchen as my tummy was growling and screaming with agonizing hunger pangs. I had had food in the morning when I left home. Even in my tiredness, I clearly understood the pain. The acids released inside my intestines were the reason behind this; I blamed the entire phenomena of my digestive system for this pain.

To calm myself down I ate my dinner, half asleep.

I didn’t even notice what I was having, but all that I could sense was some taste. I finished, washed the plate and went to bed quickly.

I went into a dream as soon as sleep pulled me into its world; a great dream.

It was a dark night, with heavy rain, and it didn’t seem like those intermittent rains. Deserted surroundings with no sign of humans! A constant downpour caused the trees to shed their leaves and scatter flowers on the road. The light from the only street lamp was lighting up the darkness a bit, which helped me to observe them.’

After a prolonged shower, the rain finally decided to halt and take a nap. I was simply looking on at the empty street, thinking about the rain.

Something moved at the dark end of the street. I could not identify what, clearly. I felt someone advancing towards me, almost like a shadow. I kept a hand on my heart and told myself not to be scared of anything, as loneliness was the ghost at the moment which alone could kill. The shadow continued to come towards the street light swiftly, and a boy emerged from that darkness. He was cycling at that time. I was not sure whether he was a human or a ghost

No human would cycle like that in this grave hour.

It was around 3:00 am to 3:30 am. I was thinking why in the hell would someone cycle in the bloody rain so late. What a mad guy he was…?

Well, don’t know why the hell I was standing there in the rain at that time too, as it was a dream.

He came somewhat closer to me. I didn’t know what happened but something seemed to have fallen from the luggage stand of his cycle.

The street lamp was not a flash light to observe clearly, as it was rather dim. Immediately the boy stopped his cycle and got down quickly.

Somehow, I observed the fallen thing and figured it was a bunch of papers, which made me realise that he was a newspaper delivery boy!

I thought he would be embarrassed deeply about the situation that he faced. I went to help him collect the papers.

His age would be about 16 years and he would have been pursuing his +2 (intermediate). He proceeded with the bundle of papers that dipped partially in the water by the side of the road.

"It’s ok, brother, no worries, it’s a common thing for me. Just leave them; I will take care, thank you, anyway," he said and gave me a smile for my voluntary help.

His eyes were filled with tears, but he controlled his emotions with a small smile.

He took the papers from me, aligned them in a particular order and kept all the papers in his luggage stand. He covered up those partially dipped wet papers with a flexi banner. Neither his head was covered with a cap, nor his body wrapped in a rain coat, but he covered the papers safely and carefully. He didn’t care for his health but he took care of the small bundle of papers. I couldn’t understand the reason. Finally he thanked me for my help, got onto the cycle, and started riding it.

I was closely observing him with pity.

He dropped one paper three houses away, but he didn’t notice the corridor. The spot where he dropped the paper was filled with rain water. Unfortunately he carried on cycling. The house owner came out suddenly and noticed the paper which bathed in the water that stood in the corridor. In a high rage, he took the paper, came out to catch the guy and shouted at him "HEY, BOY… PAPER BOY…. IDIOT…!" but the boy had left already.

His voice in my dream was loud, and coincided with my alarm in reality that rang suddenly.

I woke up and stopped the alarm on my sister’s mobile, which was what I used. It was 3:30 in the morning. I pitied the guy in my dream, the paper boy, and I felt funny about the dream. Then I got ready, woke my mom and sister softly, so that they could lock the door after I left for my part time job.

My mother and sister would tell me to leave all the time. Sometimes they would follow my words and secure the doors immediately.

I have a habit of forgetting. On the days when they followed my words exactly, my forgetful mind would get activated. As soon as I would realize that I had missed something, I would return home and knock at the door once again. Irritated, they would scream at me. So they mostly wouldn’t lock the door immediately.

In the dream that I had last night, I was replaced with some other boy. The roles were swapped between the boy and me.

In reality I should have been there in his place, and vice versa. That’s why I felt pity about the paper boy. Because every day I feel the same about me, myself, but I don’t like someone to pity me. Anyway, I embraced my fate happily.

I was a newspaper delivery boy for the HINDU agency in Tirupati.

I thought it would be better not to depend on my parents’ money for all my needs, because they were not in a position to fulfil our needs, except for our living expenses and education fees. So I decided to do some part time job.

At that time my cousin was working as a paperboy. As he was going to write his degree final exams he was searching for another guy to work in his place.

A paperboy’s job is very tough; it’s very easy to start, but difficult to come out of as no one wants to join.

My cousin was lucky that he didn’t have to try much to search for the boy, as I needed a part time job. I fought with my dad to buy a cycle as it was necessary to have a cycle for this job. But my dad didn’t know that I was going to do a part time job.

Parents won’t let their children struggle even when they face tough situations. That’s the greatness of parents.

I made a plan and asked my sister to defend me so as to buy the cycle. My sister told my dad that the cycle was needed to go to college, as I had joined the same college where she was already studying. So the cycle would aid both of us.

Our college was about 1.5 km away from my home. Hence, my dad considered my sister’s words and said he would consider her wish.

While searching in his briefcase, dad found some insurance bond, which had been left unclaimed. That was the one he had saved on my sister’s name years back. It was taken for ten years. He hadn’t paid all the premiums but he made the payment for two years. Then he neglected it.

The tenure of the policy was finished by the time he found that. Hence, we went to the insurance company office and collected the amount of Rs 28,500/-. Within that sum he bought a cycle for me.

My sister knows stitching. She started stitching women’s garments like blouses and dresses. She went for classes to learn stitching women clothes so that she could stitch even better. My mother also knew stitching but she couldn’t teach as she didn’t possess proper training from my dad.

As a whole, my family was a tailors’ family, except for me. I had an interest in tailoring, but was scared of asking my dad to teach me.

My sister was good at tailoring from her school days itself. So she learnt all varieties of ladies’ dresses quickly.

Besides me, she also started supporting herself so that my parents’ burden decreased. As dad was also from the same background, he encouraged Tara, my sweet, idiotic sister; a stubborn minded girl, but very kind at heart

Tara, a brilliant student; She was the topper of the college in the first year. Lecturers who knew my family situation recommended the Principal to promote my sister without fees. The Principal was very kind. "He really supports the poor students who are brilliant!" I had experienced this personally. He made a payment for Tara’s second year college fees from his own pocket.

I still remember the proprietor of the HINDU paper agency in Tirupati; kind hearted with great family values, and on the other side, a furious Hitler when it came to punctuality and complaints.

Mr Sampath was a Brahmin, and the third son of his parents. All the three brothers were settled with good jobs and nice designations in Tirumala and Tirupati. Along with this paper agency he was running type writing and short hand classes too.

He was an intellectual and a simple person without any ‘nice’ habits like smoking and drinking. When I saw him for the first time, I formed a good opinion about him, and his personality was the reason behind that. Cleanly shaved beard with a formal manner and great speaking abilities. The only thing was that he didn’t sport a moustache. I thought he would look great if he did!

The HINDU Printing press in Chennai was the circulator for all the surrounding areas; Tirupati was one among them. Unlike all the papers in Tirupati, the HINDU had one and only one distributor, Mr Sampath. In one single word, I would call him the emperor of the Tirupati Hindu paper agency.

The van driver who brought the paper from Chennai to Tirupati never came on time. All the paper boys would reach the paper point by 3:30 AM or 4:00 AM. Only two guys would be late every day. They never got to the point before 5:00 AM, even if the boss scolded them harshly.

If they came on time by mistake, the van driver would be late on that day. So everyone preferred them to come late.

As the driver took some time to come on most of the days, I spent time with the other paper boys in the meantime, entertaining ourselves by commenting on others and doing some funny things over there.

After waiting a long time for the van, I would go for a cup of tea. In the early morning, having tea or coffee when there was a chill in the weather brought happiness.

Very few would have experienced this happiness. If you have not, then try to experience it!

These were the small happy moments alongside the hardest things in my life. We just need to fill up our hard life with small happy moments.

I was somewhat sad to wake up in the early hours for the job, but it gave me a lovely beginning for the day. I enjoyed the pure air in the early hours; in addition, my desire of possessing an athletic body was fulfilled with continuous exercise on my cycle. The job gave me satisfaction, and so I got accustomed to the situations with which I was surrounded, even though they were difficult to handle.

Once the van came, everyone would bring one bundle of papers in which there would be 100 papers. We had to align two papers most of the days; the main paper and the Supplement, like Educational Plus, Quest, Magazine and Literary review, etc.

On all the days, except Thursdays, there would be some additional papers. On Thursday, every one left the point quickly as there wouldn’t be any alignment. Often Thursday wouldn’t even make any difference.

On the remaining days, we needed to align all the papers as one (Additional was added inside the main paper). Alignment would be simple for the seniors in this field; they didn’t even take five minutes to align 200 papers, whereas I would struggle to align 50. I observed them with interest while they aligned the papers. Thereafter, I practised what I had observed.

Everyone needed to align more papers than their count; if someone needed to take 121 papers, he had to align at least 150 papers. My paper count was 108 so I too needed to align 150 papers.

After finishing the alignment, everyone mentioned their papers count with the route number allotted to them, and returned the remaining papers to the point in-charge, after which they could leave the point. This was the normal procedure followed at the paper point.

Sometimes my boss’s last brother would take charge of the point. Those were the times I felt great about the relationship between those brothers. I was offended with my parents for not giving me a brother who could share my work.

The time would be around five o’clock when I set all the papers and started from the point.

Sometimes the van driver showed mercy on poor people like me and came by three o’clock itself. On these days, everyone would leave the point before four and most probably, finished their job before all the people woke up.

There would be no one on the roads at four in the morning. All the roads would be empty, almost like grounds to play street football or cricket even.

My paper route was very long and covered almost five areas. The other routes didn’t have coverage like mine. As, in these areas, fewer people read the English paper, our manager attached small portions from adjacent areas, so as to provide me a sufficient number of copies.

I had faced many situations where the papers in my luggage stand fell down. Sometimes on the empty roads, sometimes in the rain water, worst of all one day, into the drain when I parked my cycle on the road side without proper support.

When something happened like this, I would take a look at the sky and grumble to myself. What the hell is this? and I would start blaming God. Why did you do this to me while all my friends sleep very nicely?

I scolded myself many times for being stupid to do that job. But there was no other go, and after collecting those scattered papers with a heavy heart, I rode my cycle on the route that had to be followed.

Crossing area by area I forgot what the mighty God did to me, but started scolding my paper agency manager as he had made my route lengthier. At the end of the route I stopped scolding my manager too with my ‘holy tongue!’ ???

In the middle of my route there was a house with four floors. A bachelor used to take the paper in that building and he stayed on the fourth floor. I had to put the paper on the fourth floor itself, as per his order.

Can you just imagine the difficulty to climb all those stairs and return all the time?

It was ok, for one day or two; but if it was a daily activity!!!

Could anyone be able to do it?

No, no chance.

So no paper boy went to the first floor even. They tied the papers with a rope or placed them in a narrow plastic cover, and threw them wherever they needed to, or where they needed to be delivered, as per the reader’s request.

Here, in my case, throwing the paper to the fourth floor was very difficult as I was new to that field.

I was capable of throwing the paper till the third floor with a great effort but,

Fourth floor?

No way!!!

I tried hard daily to throw that paper, but it rarely reached its destination in the first attempt. In some cases, by the grace of the God of Air, it would reach the destination at the first throw. My attitude would be like that of Hitler, who won the world. I would feel happy for the entire day.

But in most of the cases, I would try five times at least, or more, to send the paper to its destination. Moreover, the paper would sometimes fall on another building or in some other place, like the drain, from where I couldn’t get it back. These wasted papers would be added to my account, which I would need to pay from my pocket at the end of the month with the whole bill amount collected. As I would have an exact count of the papers, if one paper got wasted, I would buy that, and finish my route to escape from complaints.

I would get Rs 8/- if I put a paper for the whole month. But here I needed to pay Rs 3/- if one single paper got wasted.

How sad! I would blame God if somehow, a single paper was wasted in this manner, even that might be because of my low capabilities.

Only a paper boy knows the pain of other paperboys. Other paperboys from other papers helped me so many times when I was struggling with this throw, at the start of my journey.

Mostly the newspaper job would get completed before 6 am if the paper van came on time. Otherwise it would be late. As I needed to leave for college by 9:30 am, I had to be prepared at least half an hour before. When I went back home after struggling with the papers and its readers, my sister would be fighting with the corporation water, which we had to bring from outside.

It was just a few steps away to my home, less than a minute walk, so I never had a problem in bringing the water, but for Tara it was tough to do so.

Above all, the irritating thing was everyone had to wait till they got the chance to fill their vessels.

One could fill four vessels at a time in cyclic order, and the chance would come to the same person once all the members present had filled their four vessels. The rule had been kept by a person who was respected in my area, and all the ladies in the surroundings, including my mom, had agreed to that. The rule was created to ensure that no one could have greater benefits than the others.

I was practically observing the social lessons that my teachers had taught me years back. I understood the concept of equity in the diversity of Indians and the policy of justice very clearly. The person who made the rule forgot to specify the size of the vessel, or how big the vessel should be.

Some carried small ones, others brought standard plastic vessels, and some used big vessels in which I could play hide and seek. At the end, the rule was to fill four vessels in cyclic order. They would repeat the chant, Rule is rule, rule for all!

That seemed very funny to me.

My sister noticed my arrival and asked me to join her in that work, so that she could take care of other things in the home. That happened when I got home early. So I could take the step in filling the buckets and water containers in my home thereafter.

Prior we had metro water connection inside my home, but due to economical financial crunch, we took it off.

My sister was very different. She could stay awake the whole night, but she never woke up early. Simply to describe her laziness, she put the Rangoli in front of our house in the night itself to avoid waking up in the early morning to make it. Often by God’s grace she would wake up when my alarm rang.

Even my mom woke up late and due to this reason, I couldn’t have breakfast in the morning. I would have breakfast, if and only if, there would be some leftover rice, or if Tara cooked something in the morning.

I never took a lunch box to college as food kept in a box loses its heat by afternoon and tastes bad. So I would come home and have my food. My sister was taking a lunch box before I joined her college. As we were in the same college in my first year, she used to join me frequently for lunch. Apparently she also stopped taking a lunch box. My mom would prepare fresh food by noon, and so we would have that and leave to college.

Life became routine with the daily tasks. I got bored as I wasn’t able to leave my place as I needed to attend to my job every morning.

It was not possible to take leave even if I fell ill, because no one knew my paper route and the houses of the readers in those areas allocated to me. To take leave, I needed to assign a guy early and show him the entire route.

I am damn sure no one can remember the route in one day. It was practically impossible. In the early morning all the houses looked alike in the dark. So we needed to keep some identity for a particular home or note its address.

Making a note of all the addresses would be a long process, and it would take four hours to complete the route. By that time all the readers would scold me for the delay, as if they had missed one crore rupees because of me.

On the other hand, it would take at least three to five days for the new guy to remember the reader’s houses in the route.

I took five days to remember all the houses. Even then I missed two or three houses, if I remember right. Moreover, when the new guy started doing my job alone, my health would be fine. So it was better to be present always, instead of taking leave.

Days passed in this way.

I was getting irritated with the job that I was doing, but I was unable to stop that because it fulfilled my needs.

My mother was getting angry at us for every task, as she needed to take care of all the work at home, as well as the tailoring. My father was driving an auto, and my mother was also trying to aid him by sharing his responsibilities.

She was a great woman, for when she came to know that we were supporting her in all aspects, she started respecting our words to some extent. I gave her some amount for expenses and Tara too would use her earnings for household needs, besides her expenditure.

We were taking care of our home expenses all together.

My mom started selling saris, along with tailoring.

Every passing day taught me so many things and gave me some experience in the job. I started leaving the paper point within 15 min once the van arrived, as I became an expert in paper alignment, no matter how many additional papers needed to be aligned.

Now it did not take more than ten minutes.???

As time passed, my capabilities extended, and I was able to throw the paper to the fourth floor house, located on my route.

Nothing is impossible with hard work.

But the hard things are those which we cannot be