The Power of a Smile!

This post has been written in response to Corinne Rodrigues’ appeal to participate in her blog hop on the occasion of “The Power of a Smile” day on 15th June 2010. Other bloggers are requested to submit their entries if they wish to participate.

Whenever I return from my office, I find several kids playing in and around the building having fun and are all smiles. One look at them and they are so generous with their 1000-Watt smiles. I have been staying at this place for over the last couple of decades and have seen these kids growing up from infants to toddlers to hyperactive school-going kids. Never have I been deprived of what I am looking for – some smiles. These smiles have been the best stress-buster for me after a day’s work. I collect them like some people collect coins or postage stamps. They work wonders!

Soon these kids will grow up and stop smiling at me – they will appear business like. Like the ones that have already grown up and are now college-going teenagers or have graduated and have taken up jobs somewhere in this busy metropolitan megacity of Mumbai. One wonders what they will think now? Why am I staring at them expectantly? Maybe, but I continue to look, wonder whether my smile will tell them or at least drop a hint…that I was just looking for the same old kid that would readily oblige me with a smile, some years ago.

I have nothing to worry, though - I will make new friends who smile at me even though they don’t know me or about my hobby of collecting smiles to relieve my stress. Nature will surely oblige, I am sure of it! The eternal optimist in me assures myself of unlimited supply of newer kids and newer smiles! But one still wonders – why do we stop or at least limit our smiling as we grow up? Why do we hoard this precious commodity and create a global shortage which cannot be exchanged with money, gold or bartered with some other like goods?

Did he/she not read that email forward which told us about how a smile takes lesser muscles than a frown? Am I becoming more like the common man in the RK Laxman cartoon, who apparently seems not to be around and yet all over the place trying to figure out what’s going on?

A smile certainly means a lot more once you grow up! I learnt this from my boss, a professional Materials Manager of a reputed organization some years ago. He would smile at one and all with the same ease and warmth. Everyone would like it – his colleagues, his juniors, our vendors, our bosses. It was at a farewell function, when I left the organization when I mentioned about his great quality, that he told us as to what great pains he had to take to ensure that the distance between the corner of the curled lips from the ears had to be painstakingly maintained lest someone think he favoured any particular vendor! That’s when all of us were in splits laughing at his presence of mind at cracking this masterpiece at us!

Certain professions, it is believed, have to check on their act of smiling – like Judges, Principals, Executioners, etc. A smile at the wrong place could jeopardize their career! But lighter moments do descend upon courtrooms, but, sadly not so the executioners. A recent incident of a smile that brought upon immense pain, was when SPS Rathore smiled at the court ruling in his favour! Little would he have imagined that the father of the victim (Ruchika Girhotra) would object and cry on national TV demanding to wipe out the smile on the face of their tormentor for decades! A demand that woke up the national media and gave the protest the much needed booster dose and millions sought justice for Ruchika, spearheaded by her close friend, Aradhana!

Another recent incident I would like to cite is the victory of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal – Mamata Bannerji was highly charged that evening when Rajdeep Sardesai asked her several probing questions about her fire-brand variety of politics, but she never smiled. Not even when Rajdeep requested her to! But then politicians are a different breed...

Some people say I post humorous stuff on my blog, forward funnies sent to me on email, tell jokes for the smiles. That may not be entirely correct – those are for the laughs - the Laughing Out Louds (LOLs), and for some, a physical exercise regime is limited to Rolling on the Floor Laughing (ROFL)s! Not smiles. It is a lot more difficult to bring on smiles. Can we bring on the smiles on the faces of people who are suffering, neglected, deprived, I ask myself? But there are folks amongst us who are doing just that - so when I find some people do just that, I feel like just a small being on this planet - I feel like someone who set out to tickle everyone and got tickled in the process!