Kuppaswamy’s Paradox: When a Full Life Feels Empty

🧳💭 "Kuppaswamy Has Everything. Yet, He Has Nothing."

A Story of the Everyday Riches We Miss

In Ponmanipudi, at the edge of the mango groves and under the reluctant shade of a half-dead neem, lives Kuppaswamy — a man who owns a bit of everything.

Two houses. Three plots. A tractor. A hybrid cow that gives 15 litres a day. Solar lights on the roof. A gas connection. Even a TV that plays both the temple channel and Tamil Bigg Boss.

He is what the village calls “settled.”

In fact, the youngsters call him “Kuppa Canada” — not because he went abroad, but because he looks like he could have.

Yet, every morning, Kuppaswamy sits at his front step with a tumbler of steaming filter coffee… and stares blankly at the rising sun. The cows pass him. The children giggle past. The temple bell rings. But his eyes remain… distant.

You see, Kuppaswamy has everything — but he doesn’t feel anything.

His children are in the city. His wife left long ago — not by death, but by disinterest. His friends are either too jealous, too polite, or too far gone. His land is fertile, but his days are dry.

People think he’s lucky.

Kuppaswamy wonders if he’s just a storage shelf for life’s leftovers.

Sometimes, he murmurs to himself:

> “They say I have peace… but I’ve only silence.

They say I have wealth… but I only count bills.

They say I have no worries… but I’ve forgotten how to smile.”

He isn’t sad. He isn’t angry.

He is simply… unfinished.

And maybe that’s the hidden truth many face but never admit:

> You can own the world and still feel like a tenant in your own life.

📚 Kuppaswamy’s story is not a tragedy — it’s a mirror. A quiet nudge to ask: Do we measure life by what we have… or what we feel?