Think Positive, Be Happy My mother had a cook called Girija who came from a poor family. She never spoke about her personal life. She was always cheerful and neatly dressed in a cotton sari and wore flowers in her well-combed hair. She looked smart and contented. While working in the kitchen she would hum songs and comply to our requests with a smile. I never saw her sad or grumbling. The only thing we knew about her was that her husband had abandoned her and their son. With very little formal education, the opportunities in a small town were limited, so she opted to be a cook. Vasant, a family friend of ours, was an executive with a multinational company and he used to visit us often. He was always complaining about something or the other and after each visit of his, the whole atmosphere would become gloomy. ‘My son is not studying well in his 12th class,’ he complained. I knew that his son was a very bright and hardworking boy. Why was his father complaining about him? ‘I want my son to get into IIT.’ In today’s competitive world, there are lakhs of children trying to get admission into one of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. If a child loses even five marks in the entrance examination because of stress, his rank comes down considerably. We can tell our children to study hard, but we should not put pressure on them to get ranks ahead of others. The next time Vasant visited us, he was unhappy for a different reason. ‘I purchased a plot about five years ago. Now that I want to sell it, the price is drastically lower,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s a slump in the market. I invested in real estate, but it has failed.’ This was a countrywide phenomenon. The housing market was going through a recession and all those who had invested in it had lost money. He was no exception. But he made it sound as though he was the sole victim of recession and that he alone was suffering. Several days later, Vasant paid us another visit. He looked exhausted. ‘Bangalore is no longer what it was,’ he complained. ‘Twenty years back, the summers were so beautiful that it felt like a hill station. Today we require airconditioners or need to get away to hill stations.’ Global warming is a worldwide phenomenon. Bangalore is no special place. But still our friend would complain. One day, when Girija and I were alone at home, I casually asked her, ‘Tell me Girija, where is your husband? Do you meet him?’ She looked at me in silence and said, ‘He is here with another woman and works for your neighbour as a driver.’ I was taken aback. She saw her husband every day and that too with another woman! ‘Are you not mad at him?’ I asked her. ‘Initially, I used to be. But now, I think I am lucky because I have only one child to support. My son is bright and obedient. Because his father deserted us, my son is more concerned about me. If I was all alone or if I had many children or if my child was irresponsible, then I would have had serious problems. God has been kind enough to me that I don’t have any such problems.’ ‘Are you not worried about your future?’ ‘Why should I worry? Can worrying solve any problem? Your mother has given us a quarter to stay. I work sincerely. All of you are happy. If I need anything, I can always ask you people. For that matter, demands are neverending. When my son grows up, he will not be like his father, because he has seen me suffer. Amma, I have not learnt much in school, but life has taught me one thing: always look at life in a positive way. You feel nice and so do the people around you.’ Immediately, I thought of Vasant. He had made his life miserable by thinking about what he did not have, whereas this uneducated woman, Girija, had learnt to see the positive side of every difficulty and to enjoy life. write a book review on the above story