A couple of days ago, I was accosted by a young man on the street. It took a moment to recognise him, but his grunted gesture at my gho followed by a big smile and thumbs up as he moved past identified him as a man I met on my return from India.<\/p>\n
I was walking back from the bus station, a large rucksack weighing me down and depression clear in my steps. Suddenly the young man – more of a boy, really – was beside me, grinning, gesturing that I should run. He jogged ahead a bit then turned to see me shaking my head. Not in the mood. Too tired. He jogged back, grabbed my arm and pulled me along, laughing. I couldn’t help but join the laughter as he dragged me up the street until even keeping my feet from tripping me was too much effort and I put on the brakes.<\/p>\n
He turned again, smiling, gesturing and grunting and I realised he was deaf. Or playing deaf. These beggers carrying ‘official’ papers to proclaim their defects and request assistance have begun to turn up in Bhutan now. Begging is illegal here, so any papers they have can’t be official. My smile faded and I prepared myself to tell him that I didn’t believe him. I certainly wouldn’t give him any money. He lifted his arm as if pretending to screw in a light bulb. Where are you going? ‘Home,’ I told him. I live here. I’m not a gullible tourist with lots of money to throw away. His response was to give me the thumbs up, run on the spot, then, still grinning, take off across the street.<\/p>\n
I hate it when my western suspicion drives my prejudices. This young man was the embodiment of Gross National Happiness. He was genuinely disabled, but wasn’t going to let that get in the way of enjoying life. He gets my vote for Chief Happiness Minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of days ago, I was accosted by a young man on the street. It took a moment to recognise him, but his grunted gesture at my gho followed by a big smile and thumbs up as he moved past identified him as a man I met on my return from India. I was… Continue reading Happiness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}