In these times, when we hear news of people committing suicide at the prime of their lives, almost every other day, Praveen Kumar’s book, Happiness Attainable is very topical in its attempts to guide the readers on “how not to worry and be happy to grow”. The book conveys many keen observations on the workings of the mind, brain and body. It states how these three organs interact with each other and the outside environment.
The brain is extremely vulnerable to our immediate surroundings and we must be aware of the ways to control it to free ourselves from anxieties or inattentiveness. The book provides the solutions and explains how the whims of the mind can be tamed to keep it from wandering.
Happiness Attainable also shares certain interesting facts about how our brain reacts to the things we see or hear. Within a moment’s time, the brain can club the information it takes in with another piece of information that might have been heard or seen years back and reacts accordingly.
The author also introduces many new ideas that leave readers pondering over how could they have overlooked such a thought, given its simplicity. Kumar states that listening is one of the simplest manifestations of meditation — either we are listening to our mind that is “thinking”, or to one or more person. Laudable though the attempt is, Happiness Attainable leaves scope for a more proficient presentation. A bit more attention to the technicalities of writing like lucid language and a structured pattern could have made it attain a certain semblance of readability.