What everybody wants!

Almost all humans want two things for sure: one is happiness and the other is health or beauty. Whether it is the rich living in princely mansions or the poor living on the footpaths of busy roads, all want to look beautiful and be happy.
I travel daily from my home in Chembur to my office in Mahalakshmi which is almost a 14 km journey. I pass by a station called Chinchpokli. It is not uncommon to find several families making the footpaths as their homes in Mumbai but what is interesting is the way they eke their lives on these footpaths.
At this footpath outside the Chinchpokli station, I see this family everyday. The woman of this 'house', probably in her 40s,has a burnt body as is evident from her burnt neck and face. She has set up a nice pedestal with proper shelter on a wooden box adjacent to the parapet wall for pooja on which are seated the photos of a few Hindu Gods,prominent of them being Lord Ganesha. The iron railings separating the main road and the footpath act as hangers for washed clothes. A little away from the pooja pedestal is the kitchen and adjacent to that is a mirror hanging on the wall. As I was passing by, I had seen her take the mirror in her hand and give herself a 'face lift'.
The way she was trying to do it really mesmerized me and provoked my already philosophic mind. Here, we have a human living in penury on the roadside, yet the way she was living and 'making' her home is no less than someone who has all the riches. She is perfectly at ease with herself and her surroundings in the process of living, being happy and yet the same time being conscious of looking good in spite of a burnt body. Hundreds of pedestrians walk through her 'home' after coming out of the station at any given point in time
So where does happiness and looking good come from? The answer comes from this live example. From the state of ones own mind and how they create their surroundings. We find so many such examples in the commercial capital of India:Mumbai.
While I appreciate and also pity the way they live in the face of such poverty, I wish they had their own proper shelter. Can our governments do something on this?

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