“Mmm.”

“The words – “bliss” and “enlightenment” – they are his words, not ours.”

“But he had been talking with Brown – who was effectively a sadhu in disguise.”

“That’s true.”

“And he was reading about Sadhus on the net.”

“He was.”

“So it’s not that great a surprise when he uses a couple of words he obviously has no knowledge of himself.”

“Perhaps not.”

As the traffic thickened around Kalyan it was the familiar barge – the biggest vehicle carrying the ultimate power – jeeps, buses, army trucks. The rest hunting in packs, two against one, three on two – coming through with their horns blaring – “get out of my way!”

“Anyway… to get to the point, where do you think he is now?”

“On the graph?”

“Yes – after his depression – where is he now?”

“Stuck in the middle somewhere.”
It was harsh, but true. The P.M. would also have placed Max somewhere in the middle – between 40% and 60% – not particularly happy, but not depressed either – just going nowhere fast. That was, until he booked the ticket.

“Mmm,” he said.
As they squeezed their way back into the mainstream, the P.M. toyed with the card. The idea behind the graph seemed utterly simplistic, almost trite – clearly the product of an adolescent mind. But the P.M. couldn’t help thinking that there was some truth in it – of course, there were variations or degrees of happiness – he’d moved through quite a range himself, sometimes on the same day! And he liked the perspective – the naïve impression the graph conveyed that enlightenment was no further from normality than suicide. To the P.M. this was the obvious flaw – the graph made reaching the top look far too easy. But even so, he couldn’t resist the question – where would you put yourself – right now?

Was he happy?
Was he up there in the 60-100% range?