A Thai
English poem by Pompen Hantrakool
Explicated
by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
Text
Happiness
–Unhappiness
Happiness
seems costly
Unhappiness
is usually free
No one
fancies
But
sometimes
Happiness
comes free
You don’t
have to buy
Unhappiness demands
so much
Yet people
war over it at all costs
Explication
This is a
poem that dwells on the commonplace of life
-- happiness and unhappiness-- seldom touched upon by poetry directly.Now
a days much of the worlds resources money and intellect are being spent on the
issue of development.But do we ever ask whether the people of the developed
countries are happy at all. Are they at all happier than the people of the
developing countries or the people of the so called underdeveloped countries?The
prince of Bhutan has put forward the happiness index. The world in general and economists in particular are not
as yet aware of the issue. Pompen fires pointblank at the issue. The poem opens
with the two lines –happiness seems to be costly/ you often have to buy. Cost
implies cost of manufacturing as well as external costs that are not included
in the price of the manufactured good.For example the car driver does not pay
for the damage he causes to the environment, A thing is however deemed costly
when the thing in question is dearer
than other things in the market. No one has the right to enter into such a
discourse unless one has effective demand for happiness or in other words one
has the resources with which one could buy happiness. Of course we want to derive
maximum happiness with minimum using up of resources and we have to choose
which happiness among the happinesses at hand could be bought with whatever
means we have. And of course there could be buying on margin And buying implies
emotions. Emotions play a large part in the decision that impels one to buy .
When Pompen tells us that one has to buy happiness she is very much
antiromantic. There are people who cherish notions of happiness that are not
material. Pompen seems to tell them in their face that they are humbugs .Of
course Pompen is too sophisticated to become bluntly modern . She seems to
smile in her shirtsleeves and say her says. When she tells us that one could
buy happiness in the market we surmise that
there are happinesses in stead of happiness.There one remembers Mill the utilitarian . Happiness
exists through its antonym unhappiness. Pompen in her characteristically ironic
way observes that unhappiness is free and no one covets unhappiness. Pompen
says—No one fancies –that is no one fancies unhappiness. Fancy is a significant
word.. To fancy is to feel a desire or liking for. Indeed what to talk of
advertisements the whole gamut of education evokes fancies in our heart. And it
is these fancies and enotions that impel us to buy. That is why we buy diamonds
at great price whereas water is free. Fancy and emotion go together. Unless one
laughs one cannot say what the fancy is
that makes him laugh. When we abstract
the bodily symptoms from the consciousness of an emotion caused by fancy
nothing remains left but a neutral state of
intellectual perception. And yet it is a pity that the official
economics speaks of rational buying. Market is a structure where buying and
selling takes place . Curiously enough the market as conceived by Pompen has
both happiness and unhappiness for sale. But no one fancies to buy unhappiness.
In other words in Pompens vision the world is a vast market where both
happiness and unhappiness are displayed
for sale although there are few buyers of unhappiness. But despite that
unhappiness is usually free.This is an idea viable only in the context of
market.Where everything has to be possessed in exchange of giving away something
anything free draws our attention . And here is a clever advertisement to get
unhappiness marketed.Pompen draws the readers attention to the fact that unhappiness
is free and we might try to possess unhappiness a little. Ha Ha.
There is a
long pause.Then Pompen utters half articulately—But sometimes…
Then a
pause. Pompen resumes her speech-Happimess comes free.In other words , although
there is rush for buying happiness and no one fancies to possess unhappiness ,
but sometimes happiness is free and people vie with one another to possess
unhappiness at all costs. Well here is a paradox. Indeed paradoxes are the
stuff with which poetry is written. Let us look at the second stanza from the
standpoint of the contingent. The world does not witness a single day when a bloody battle is not lost and won. What
for the battle takes place? May be for some mineral say for liquid gold
petroleum and may be for power. To buy implies to have some exclusive power
over something. As per the rules of the game called market commodities need to
be purchased in exchange of money.A person could buy a thing in exchange of all
his belongings . It depends on his fancy. Now all ones belongings could mean
ones flesh and life too. One might there fore lay down his life to possess
something. Here one thing must be noted.Man has not as yet been civilized
enough to sell everything that he has.But man often wants to possess everything
that others have no matter whether the latter offer them for sale or not. But
let us go one step ahead. The rulers of the state often send armies to
grab some natural resources that belong
to some other states or communities. So one state seeks to possess something at
the cost of human lives at its disposal. Surely thanks to the Midas touch of
conventional economics and management man is now a days deemed as resource and
capital. We talk of human resource and human capital. In fact it was not Adam
Smith who fathered economics. It was Sebastian Cabot who started the slave
trade during renaissance and unknowingly
composed the keynote of economics.Well at the cost of blood literally and
euphemistically speaking at the cost of human resources and human capital the
states often vie with each other for the possession of what they call wealth
and happiness.What is happiness then? Happiness is a feeling for exclusive
possession of something that others also seek to possess It is the feeling that
one seeks. When many people vie for a bicycle possession of a bicycle will make
me happy. If people had rushed for a scooter the possession of a scooter would
give me happiness. So material things to be bought in the market are immaterial
What we really go to buy in the market
is to buy happiness. Hallo market is a
structure where happinesses are bought and sold. Now look at happinesses bought
and sold in the market.If one possesses happiness depriving others it is but at
bottom unhappiness How come? Let us try to understand what market is.
Competition is at the heart of market. If everything is not bought and sold in
the market force instead of money has to be employed to possess things. Hence
wars are manifestations of market. The economists should rejoice at these
findings.To possess a thing that is coveted by others implies that the
possessor must be eternally vigilant lest the prized possession is stolen. That
robs him of his sleep.Or else he sleep walks to guard his possession. Is it happiness?
Call it happiness? Hence pompen says—Unhappiness demands so much/ yet people
war over it at all costs. In the market context possession of that which is
asked for is happiness and unhappiness withal. Wha t we buy in the name of happiness is buying
unhappiness.Happiness is however something that cannot be bought and sold. It
comes free unasked for.Pompen says—You don’t have to buy. So in other words the
unhappiness that is free and that people donot fancy for is happiness.All that
glitters is not gold Gold does not glitter. If one is content with what he gets free one is in possession of
gold.Economics usually doesnot look upon
water as wealth because it is not scarce and because it is free.But water gives
life and gold gives life Economics is a discipline that makes the trifles valuable
and the really value is turned by it into trifles Economics stands on its head.
Pompen seeks to make economics stand on its feet. Pompens poetic genius thus
turns a commonplace theme into a priceless subject for reflection
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