Happiness

By Chirajit Sengupta

Many fools have tried to search for me,

Wasting their lives away in a fruitless pursuit.

Many wise have claimed to find me, only to end with despair,

On realising they have been tricked by the master loot.

I don’t reside in the mountains,

I don’t live in the caves.

I also don’t swim in the seas, with wild seagulls flying away.

I have been called dopamine, serotonin.

People infact spend hours in the gym to find me as endorphins.

Yet people fail to realise that I was always there.

In the simplest mundane tasks of life,

Only if performed with a pinch of gratitude.

I was there when you were cleaning your room,

I was there when you washed the car,

To hell I was even there when while baking for the first time you added salt to the cake.

For I was never the destination,

For I was never the ultimate goal, for I was always the simple steps, of a gigantic staircase.

Whose paths we must all travel alone.

A staircase bedazzled with both jewels of triumph and rivers of sorrow.

Acceptance of which leads to peace, as the pages of life flips away one by one into a time which is borrowed.

By Chirajit Sengupta