IN THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

WRITTEN BY PULASTYA

What ties two people together? Common interests mainly, audio being of the many one finds in common, be it a song, an artist, a set-up which plays music to their liking and so on. The combination of all plus other varied interests is probably what got me and my good friend Makesh connect from being unknown to each other to developing a good friendship over the duration of nearly half a decade.

It started from being on a forum, related to audio video discussions, that lead to interacting via emails and text messages and finally ending up meeting in a locally organised a hi-fi meet. Makesh’s interest in achieving a respectable stereo set-up made him continue doing the rounds of upgrades during which he always kept me in the loop as a sounding board, sometimes also to justify to himself whether he was heading in the right direction or not. By and large, I remained in the scheme of things, be it remote or on site with him during the various demo sessions at various places that were offering a chance to him and me to listen to options lined up either in his budget or sometimes not. After each upgrade, he would stop, reflect, contemplate and then move on. A lot of times, I could sense his frustration at not getting the desired result and kind of giving up, though I am glad he did not. This period would go on sometimes for weeks, or months, with long periods of complete silence maintained from his end.

In the past two years, Makesh took a direction that I have found has lead him to being on the path of the intended destination which he always was in pursuit of. Having met him yesterday, with other common friends over a listening session which was swinging from one direction to the other in respect to identifying a source he needed to keep and one he had to let go, something delightful happened.

By strange quirk of fate, it so happened that a highly experienced, trained and gifted person who though not invited last evening came along with me to just come and see where Makesh was presently with his set-up. Once he was allowed by Makesh to carry out some tweaks, the set-up was locked in and that’s where Makesh realised that he had arrived at his destination.

End of the day, it might not be perfect, the room in which it is set-up is not perfect, there are a lot of other constraints that Makesh has decided to live with and understands very well that nothing in life is perfect. Maybe his journey in the pursuit of happiness related to his passion for his desired stereo set-up has rather ended in the manner he intended.

Cheers to Makesh and hope that his case inspires others in a similar situation to achieve their respective pursuits of happiness as well.