Perps asked:

What is true happiness? Can it be attained?

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A story might illustrate the answer to this question. It is from the Memoirs of Chilean poet, Pablo
Neruda (1904-73). He is flying Air India in the late fifties with friend Jorge and Zelia Amado:

The Indian planes were always crammed with turbaned passengers, covered with colours and loaded
with baskets. It seemed impossible to squeeze so many people into an airplane. A crowd got off at
the first airport and another got on to take their place. We had to go on beyond Madras to Calcutta.
The plane shuddered under the tropical storms. A day like night, darker than true night, suddenly
covered us, and then left to make room for a glaring sky. The plane began staggering again; lightning
and thunder illuminated the sudden darkness. I watched Jorge Amado's face go from white to yellow
and from yellow to green. And he saw the same mutation of colour produced in my own face by the
terror that gripped our throats. It started to rain inside the plane. The water came in in heavy drops
that reminded me of my house in Temuco during winter. But ten thousand meters up the leaks did not
amuse me. The amusing thing though, was a Buddhist monk sitting beside us. He opened an
umbrella and with Oriental serenity went on reading the texts of ancient wisdom.
(p.231 Penguin edn.).

Matthew Del Nevo

www.sicetnon.com