Page 12 - Seniorstoday Sep 2024 Issue

First Person

“Garja Vadhvu Naka”—

do not increase your needs

By shifting our mindset and learning to differentiate between what we truly
need or have simply accumulated, we can begin to reclaim our space, our
time, and our overall well-being, writes Vickram Sethi

“Saman sau baras ka aur Pal bhar ki the success of their marriage as explained
khabar nahi” - Stuff for a hundred years by the couple is to live simply and limit
and no news for a moment. one’s needs. That is the principal of “Garja
Recently I met a very charming couple Vadhvu Naka”.
who said that at the beginning of their It is so easily said, simple living and high
marriage that husband told his wife that thinking and the people who say it, are the
“The success of their marriage amongst ones that don’t practice it. Gandhiji was
other things would be the GVN principal considered a man who practiced simple
- “Garja Vadhvu Naka” which in Marathi living and there were many stories about
means — do not increase your needs. The his simplicity, but when he had to travel
man was highly qualified and was working the whole third-class compartment was
to go abroad for better prospectus, his reserved for him. But this piece is not
grandmother who brought him up said, about Gandhiji. The principal of GVN
leave your photograph here, so at least I is to understand that money can’t buy
can talk to you, when I feel like. She also happiness. In fact, happiness is a habit that
told him, “merely earning a lot of money, you build, just like exercising or eating
will not make him a big man, his deeds sensibly. Choosing happiness is something
are what will make him man of status”. So you do for yourself and the people around

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