Happiness is a state of mind, was the old adage. But it is now nation-state specific. That, at least, is the takeaway from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network ‘World Happiness Report 2021’ released earlier this week. According to its findings, Finland finds perpetual joy in the morning as it continues to top the global happiness index for the fourth time in a row while India is as grumpy as ever coming in at number 139 of the 149 countries surveyed.

The World Happiness Report mainly uses data received from the Gallup World Poll to reach its conclusions. Gallup tracks key areas in countries including business and economic conditions, communication and technology access, citizen engagement, educational opportunities, family ties, emotional state of citizens, availability of food and shelter, and prevalence of law and order.

The focus of this year’s report is obviously on the impact of Covid-19 and the ways in which people have fared in times of the pandemic across the globe. Even a cursory look at the countries that figure at the top of the World Happiness List, however, would tend to confirm that while money may or may not buy love it certainly can help in the pursuit of happiness or approximations thereof. Nordic and Antipodean nations ~ Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia among them ~ all would appear to be populated by some of the happiest souls on the planet.

That nearly all of them run welfare states and are among the most gender-equal in the world may have something to do with it. A surprise inclusion is that of Germany which also figures in the top 15, perhaps demolishing forever the stereotype of the dour German which has dominated popular culture for decades. The Swiss are there, of course, at No. 3, their centuries-old neutrality and discreet banking practices having obviously paid them a whopping happiness dividend. Israelis, on the other hand, despite living in a ‘pretty rough neighbourhood’ as King Hussein of Jordan once described West Asia, also make it to the happiness list at No. 12 proving that their country is truly its neighbours’ envy and owners’ pride.

As for India, the world’s largest democracy with an ancient cultural ethos, ranks 139th out of 149 countries which is neither here nor there. The problem is that Pakistan is at No. 105. But every dark cloud has a silver lining; if the decision of the Delhi government to lower the legal age for consumption of alcohol to 21 years is emulated by other states, the 2022 Happiness List may well see