Meet Saamdu Chetri from the land of happiness

Dubai: So what is it like to be living in Bhutan, one of the world’s happiest countries? Ask Saamdu Chetri and he will tell you, “To me, happiness is within all of us, it’s a choice we exercise.”

At the World Government Summit to attend the launch of the World Happiness Report on Sunday, the visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, said happiness is essentially an individual experience. He said he had given the UAE Minister of Happiness a lowdown on the Bhutanese Cross National Happiness model when she visited the hilly kingdom two years ago. “Collective happiness is what governments, communities and families provide. They can create a framework for you. But your happiness per se can’t be measured, it’s a subjective experience.” So it’s best described as a state of well-being, he noted.