The Art of Happiness

country. From that viewpoint, it is very tragic—and there are even worse things. There’s a lot ofdestruction happening in our country. That’s avery negative thing. But if I look at the sameevent from another angle, I realize that as arefugee, I have another perspective. As a refugeethere is no need for formalities, ceremony,protocol. If everything were status quo, if thingswere okay, then on a lot of occasions you merelygo through the motions ; you pretend. But whenyou are passing through desperate situations,there’s no time to pretend. So from that angle,this tragic experience has been very useful to me.Also, being a refugee creates a lot of newopportunities for meeting with many people.People from different religious traditions, fromdifferent walks of life, those who I may not havemet had I remained in my country. So in that