Human Values: Prerequisite for Happiness

By Senan Mathummal

Human Values: A Prerequisite for Happiness is an attempt to expound the virtuous aspects of human values that are embedded in short stories and few essays. The readers are availed of the opportunity to identify the human values and come to grips with the need to appreciate the value or values that could circumvent the difficulties encountered by individuals. Essentially, this should enhance the ability of the readers to appreciate the importance of human values of love, truth, right conduct, peace, and nonviolence in all interpersonal relationships to lead cohesive lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664111257

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Copyright © 2021 by Senan Mathummal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/12/2021

Xlibris

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www.Xlibris.com

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BLESSINGS

Joyous blessings so countless

To many a mighty and the weak

Joyous blessings so countless

To strengthen the drooping soul

Joyous blessings so countless

To mend a broken heart

Joyous blessings so countless

To sink memories of sorrow and grief

Joyous blessings so countless

To yearn for the morrow so bright

Joyous blessings so countless

To bask in the glory of love

Joyous blessings so countless

To nourish a sinless soul

Senan

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1 A Worthwhile Holiday with an Unusual Incident

Chapter 2 Destination Obscure

Chapter 3 Entanglement

Chapter 4 Gratitude Begets Gratitude

Chapter 5 Jaswant Celebrates Her Sixteenth Birthday

Chapter 6 Man’s Creation of Turmoil

Chapter 7 Love as Eternal

Chapter 8 The Profound Effect of Sympathy

Chapter 9 The Bride with a Veil

Chapter 10 Blessings of Sound Environment

chapter 11 Multiculturalism and the Melting Pot Syndrome

Chapter 12 Where to from Here

Chapter 13 Beautiful Princess

Chapter 14 Glory of Righteousness

Inspirational Perceptions

Acknowledgment - Comments of encouragement

Tribute to Nelson Mendala

FOREWORD

Senan Mathummal hails from the Republic of Singapore after having successfully completed his tenure of service as an educationist at various levels of the secondary education with the Singapore education service, for thirty three years. He was conferred with a presidential award for his dedicated service by the Singapore government.

Senan was born in Malacca, an historic city in the peninsular of Malaya, now known as Malaysia. After his early primary education he continued his high school studies at St. Michael’s Anglo-Indian High School, Kannur, Kerala, India. This institution, with English as the medium of instruction, was conducted by the Jesuit Fathers who belonged to the Society of Jesus, with a curriculum similar to that of the United Kingdom. After the high school studies Senan left for Singapore where he studied for the Certificate in Education at the Singapore Institute of Education. He then attended a one year study course in the teaching of English for the upper secondary levels at the British Council conducted by specialists from London, the U.K. He was acknowledged for his outstanding ability to teach English with effective innovations. He has also obtained credentials from the Massey University, New Zealand. Most of his teaching experiences had been to nurture the students for the General Certificate of Education O level examinations, conducted by the Cambridge Syndicate, London U.K. As for his extra mural activities, he was a qualified empire for field hockey and trained the young adults in Air Rifle practice sessions.

Senan was also involved in the adult education program in Singapore as a tutor as well as the supervisor of a Centre. He coached the adult students for the English language and English literature papers for the GCE O examinations, London, U.K.. After his retirement from Singapore, he migrated to Canada where he continued his volunteer services, by teaching English to newly immigrant adults and children. Later he embarked on community services as president of the Sathya Sai Baba Centre of Calgary and then the president of the India Canada Association of Calgary with around fourteen affiliated ethnic groups. Now Senan enjoys the company of his five grandchildren who respond very well to all his jokes.

Senan has had a very fulfilling career upholding many pleasant memories of nurturing the young to become full fledged adults. Apart from articles for community organizations, periodicals and bulletins, he had published a book, Inspirational Perceptions in 2013 related to the art of learning from experiences for personal improvement.

In this present attempt by Senan to publish Human Values – a prerequisite for Happiness in the form of stories and essays that should strengthen the determination for one, to be careful before getting into any decision, by way of sound analysis. The moral focus embedded in every story could become a great guidance for self- improvement.

My best wishes to Senan Mathummal.

Professor Titus Mathews

University of Calgary

2500 University Drive N.W

Calgary AB T2N 1N4

Canada

PREFACE

I did not hold any inclination to get into writing short stories, though I enjoyed reading them. Perhaps I was overtly satisfied with writing self-contained articles and bulletins delving in humanistic mundane problems. I did have tremendous interest in these types of topics as they jived with some of the talks I used to deliver on behavior atrocities of people caused by lack of universal human values.

Later on, it dawned on me that many of the spiritual parables and talks related to mythological concepts seem to hold the characteristics of writing short stories. This steadily turned into a powerful thought in me to delve into the actual writing of short stories.

During my younger days, I used to have a flair for gleaning through the Readers’ Digest as my dad used to subscribe to it quite regularly. Gradually, I began reading some of the articles that were interesting to me. I then was caught up with the habit of reading the Digest very often. I seem to have liked the brevity of each article that held my focus without any deviation, and the repeated appearance of the range of vocabulary in the articles helped me be more expressive in my spoken language.

I even began to pick out the moral embedded in quite some of the articles.

As I was getting into higher classes in school, I got a fancy for the Time magazine. This got me interested in serious topics dealing in scientific researches, technological developments, and sufferings of people in certain parts of the world. The language used seems to have been more pragmatic and less descriptive. Here again, I seemed to have constantly improved my language efficiency brought about by reading the same publications.

I remember reading about the former prime minister of Britain, Winston Churchill, who used to read Silas Marner practically every night before he went to sleep. During his time, he was one of the top English language experts, along with Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru and others. It is said that if a person gets involved in an exhaustive reading of the same author’s works, the tendency would be for the person to excel in the language because of the familiar use of repeated range of vocabulary and expressions.

After a while, I had the opportunity to read short stories by celebrated writers like Guy de Maupassant and Somerset Mugham and many others. The stories become so very emotive to hold the readers tight until the end.

Sometimes strange declarations of writers could become so very enticing to remain forever in one’s memory. Somerset Maugham had mentioned in his book The Summing Up that the desire to acquire money is never evil. He further elaborates that people who are not privileged to have money tend to be devoid of the ability to advance their worldliness and be useful to uplift mankind from their detestable existence. Even if a person is bestowed with intellectual prowess, he or she may be forced to lead a stifled, without any development, caused by lack of monetary incentives.

Oftentimes there will be moral concepts embedded in the stories to make the reading so very rewarding. The brevity of the stories persuades readers to have greater interest and become passionate about short stories as they could be interested in anecdotes or incidents or social unrest and so forth.

As I was toying with the idea of trying to work on writing short stories, an unusual incident happened. My birthday was approaching, and my wife Vasantha and I decided not to have any celebrations as the whole country was reeking with the coronavirus pandemic that has spread all over the world unabated. Nevertheless, my wife decided on a simple dinner at home, perhaps just for two. Then the surprise. On the same day, my grandchildren, Adhiti, Amlika, and Amithash, dropped by with a rather unusual gift—Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak, a prominent American writer. I had at that time almost completed another book by John Curtis Perry titled Singapore, a historical book but narrated with a literary approach—a gift all the way from Dubai from my daughter Nesha, her husband Amit, and my grandsons Saurav and Ved. I then felt that these overtures from my own family members augur well for me to start my story-writing.

I felt that I would be writing short stories that could reflect some form of incidents pertaining to human experiences. Ultimately, I decided on the title Human Values: A Prerequisite for Happiness. I shall leave the interpretation of it to the readers.

My very special gratitude to my wife and children for all the encouragement provided for attempting the unchartered territory—short stories. May I also appreciate the personnel of Xlibris Publishing Co., USA, for their efficient service and commitment.

I am very much indebted to Ms. Jan Calvez of Okotoks, a highly-talented artist, well known for her public exhibitions, for meticulously checking through the manuscript despite being busy with her regular responsibilities at SAIT. Jan Calvez is a close friend of my elder daughter Asha and her hubby Avenish. I am grateful indeed to my son Sachvin for having rendered tremendous help on the computer as I am still a novice. At the earlier stages, I did request my daughter Nesha in Dubai to opine on my draft, and she was just ecstatic with encouragement. Her son Saurav, with his proficiency in computer skills, was the best ever for helping me in times of need. Most of all, I would be delighted to have the readers appreciate the practice of human values that will propagate a sense of peace and harmony at all times. Happy reading.

Senan Mathummal

CHAPTER 1

A Worthwhile Holiday with

an Unusual Incident

The thought of traveling will often have a mystical effect to most people as it engenders a feeling of change from the routine humdrum of a life that can be rather dull and tedious. But not everybody is availed of this opportunity at all times brought about by various inhibitions like financial strains, health conditions, or unavailability of leave from work or other various family commitments. But the unabated yearning for travel will constantly be in the minds of many as change is a revitalizing agent to feel better with an impetus to continue whatever a person does with greater efficiency.

Once there was a family who had immigrated to Canada, thereby landing in a remote village town quite