Smile...Smile a While!

What is a Smile…? We all have been lifted up in spirits when we see a beautiful smile. So what is this smile…where does it come from…? Me thinks, a smile is basically an effect created due to the interplay between the muscles of the face, teeth, supporting gums and emotions from the brain. It is a unique human quality that has the power to express a myriad of human expressions. Each smile is said to be characteristic to an individual, defining his/her personality.

Well, isn’t it impressive to see someone who is totally comfortable with himself and holds the thought that beauty is only superficial and based on vanity? But unfortunately, this thought does not hold good. Aesthetics and function are well integrated into each other and are inseparable. A beautiful smile is an indication of proper and healthy function of human mind.

In today’s world, where the emphasis on beauty is growing rather than diminishing, more and more people from all walks of life are increasingly becoming aware of their smile. Whether this awareness is for personal improvement or stems from the belief that appearances influence professional success, the number of people who are becoming smile conscious is growing. Recent research indicates that presentable people are by far more confident and successful. Looking good certainly makes these people feel good!

Like wise, when someone smiles at you, you yourself feel ‘lifted’. The confidence and healthy mind of the other gets contagious to you. The Impact of such a ‘smile lift’ can readily be seen in the new found happiness and increase in self-esteem. The reason to smile is simple. A smile shows that you're an open, friendly, relaxed person. Even more importantly, people have a a natural reaction to smile when they see you smile, making THEM feel open, friendly, and relaxed on the inside. The ACT of smiling is what shows you're a friendly, open, confident person. The ACT of smiling is what triggers the good feelings in the other person. There is often a metamorphosis in the over-all appearance and improved social interactions of the persons involved. I am here going to reveal about one such smile, the most divine of them all, I have ever seen, which at that point of time, took me to another plane.

It was a pleasant June evening and the downpour had lent freshness to the Delhi breeze. After a day’s labour at the office my body was aching till the bones…fatigued and drained, my only saviour was the lovely weather and a lovelier company (let’s call that person, say what. Well, ‘Anon’) that I would be reveling while I accompany her to Ansal Plaza for some sundry shopping.

My disinterest in shopping propelled me to rejuvenate myself by quickly grabbing a bite while ‘Anon’ shopped. In search of nice eatery (Barista was becoming a little boring for me now) I went around the entire mall but did not find anything worthwhile… thirsty and tired, I rushed to the water cooler and gulped gallons of water…

Revived and refreshed, I was about to go back to ‘Anon’ at first floor when I spotted a Baskin Robbins. I ordered a choc-sundae. Served in a bowl were two scoops of two different chocs over a huge slice of brownie with an icing of whipped cream and a cherry over it.

I casually gazed around having my ice-cream. I found a little girl about four years of age holding a waffle cone which in those petite hands looked like a gigantic mountain. Standing with her older brother, she was glancing curiously at her brother’s ice-cream and then her own… contented that her own was better, she resumed eating her waffle merrily.

I had just began eating my sundae and must’ve had only three four bites when I realized that ‘Anon’ must’ve been waiting for me…so I started for the escalator and was just about a few steps when I noticed that the same little girl standing in front of me and watching me eating my sundae, with her big wondrous eyes…there was something inexplicable about her that made me stop. May be her childish desire for the delectable delicacy I was holding…or it was plain naivety reflected in her face that momentarily brought back the memoirs of my childhood!

For quite some time I just kept watching her, totally fascinated by the simplicity of this beautiful child in whom I saw the child I once had been…

Finally, after coming out of my nostalgia, I moved closer to this sweet child and held my ice-cream spoon, in front of her, offering a bite of what was exclusively to be devoured by me and ‘Anon’! The girl looked at me, and then at the sundae and without any further thoughts and took the bite and then handed over her ice-cream for the one I had! We exchanged it among us! After that she gave me one of the most beautiful divine smiles I’ve ever seen… our brief encounter ended as abruptly as it had begun when her mother called her back and thanked me!

I went on where ‘Anon’ was waiting for me, but my mind was still far away, pre-occupied with the thoughts of that little girl, filled with memoirs of her simple gestures…it was the innocence of that girl in her divine smiles and her desires that left such an imprint on my mind….

When somebody smiles at you like that, you feel so relaxed and comfortable. And it is very important for all of us to feel comfortable. Unfortunately, most people walk around with a rather stern look on their face and are not in the habit of smiling. Yes, it's a learned habit not to smile and you have to reprogram yourself to be in the habit of smiling to everyone. So make it a habit to smile at everyone you meet… and that may be why a poet had once sung :-

Smile smile
a little while…
a lovely smile…
And while you smile…
There’ll be
miles and miles
of smile
Just coz you smile...

Railway Musings!

Ever had a two-day-old egg curry…? Chances are many of us have, certainly those who traveled by the good ’ol Indian Railways on any stretch of this great country. And this Bharatiya Rail ensures that the two-day-old curry often matures to a ripe three-day affair. This must be part of their ‘more for the fare’ deal…for one; they ensure you get to spend more time enjoying their hospitality as the trains invariably runs late.

But since the entire system seems to run on the Indian Stretchable Time (IST), how late is late, one may ask? Is it an hour, or about two or three? Nay too less by any standards. So how about ten? Yes, that sure qualifies as late by any standards. A recent return trip from Kerala (traveling Sleeper Class to enjoy the three S’s – sights, sounds and smells), my super-fast train – thanks to Rains, Floods and et al - to decided to be ‘expressively’ late.

The traveling conditions changed, and ambience too changed the second every one in the compartment came to know that they would be spending more than a few extra hours there itself. And out came some interesting facts in to focus in the compartment’s fluorescent lights. Fact One – ‘Delay equals boredom. And boredom equals ‘nosey parker syndrome’. Fact Two – when lemon rice runs out, the ‘Subramaniams’ turn sour. Till now they are with relish, the four tiffins (Baby ‘S’ a healthy 13 year old girl, ate rather well) of the ‘sappad’ garnished with ‘Thakkali’ (Tomato) chutney and crisp ‘Appalams’, while I survived on the railway’s foil packed rubber reinforced chappathis with yellow curry of indeterminate origin.

With food gone, Mr & Mrs ‘S’ (and the pig-tailed baby ‘S’) need some new entertainment and quickly found one…! Me ! they could ignore me for the past two days as I was buried in my books. But now with the journey going over-time, I am an easy target. “What is that you are eating” ? Asked Mrs ‘S’ leaning over to my side. ‘Egg Curry” I answer. “Terrible Choice” she declares, “Simbly Terrible” He adds an adjective, ignoring my raised eye-brows.

From then on, I am treated to a holistic lecture on exactly how terrible my egg curry is. From the state of the hen’s mental make-up, to the physical make-up and the sweating habits of the railway cook, and even the water they use to dilute the curry ! “God knows where they came from”.

I wanted to heave. But refuse to play to the gallery. Instead I try a chess move, and offer some of my lunch to the ‘pigtailed devil’, who driven by her teen-aged appetite, tucks in, with so much as a glance at amma and appa.

The strategy works, and her parental units have been silenced, effectively for the rest of the journey. And I made a mental note to pack a kilo of lemon rice for myself, the next time I travel on Indian Railways.

Net Deprivation Syndrome!

......Addiction to Internet. Yes, Addiction...just like one is addicted to Drugs....Coke....Alcohol. I too have succumbed to this new fad....so to speak!! And what do u have when u are deprived of ur addiction....Yes....Withdrawal Symptoms....!

So these days, after 5 Email Ids, 3 Messengers, 2 Blogs, and endless number of WebPages, I end a conversation on my handphone by clicking a button on my computer (Thanks to Voice Chat and VoIP), and gets irritated when other landlines doesn’t respond to the clicks on my computer…. I end up with a unique urbane disease called IDS or Internet Deprivation Syndrome. My fingers are itching…My eyes are twitching….

It has been 6 hrs already. Yes 6 looong looong hours. Yesterday, I chatted for three hours and 27 minutes with my chat buddy ‘love_an_ice’ (it is her online nickname). When ‘Nandini’ came and told me proudly that she chatted for three hours 14 minutes on her handphone hooked to the internet with her online friend from ‘Greenland’, I told her that I chatted for 23 minutes more than her, with this ‘love_an_ice’, from believe it or not, ‘Cyberia’. U should have seen her face then….talking green, she has indeed turned ‘green’. For a difference, she was the loser this time around, and I, the victor. This ‘ice cream lover’ is my online pal. I chat with her almost everyday. Daughter of an Iraqi Colonel, she tells me all the latest gossips from her university and her evening job in a small city in Iraq called Karbala. She even tells me how her people are fighting the ‘Invaders’ and how she heard a giant thud of a bomb dropping just across her street. I tell her all about my life in an Indian metropolis. To the rest of the world, I am ‘Me’, the meek, the quiet, but to this ‘ice cream lover’, I am a ‘Neo’, the oh so cool, the one that all flip for! To this ‘ice cream lover’, ‘Neo’ (Oops! I forgot to tell u, it is my online name) is the epitome of manhood. I can do anything I want. I invent. I tell her all the things I wish had happened to me, as if they actually did! Who is to know? She does not know my real name, my address or anything else. ‘Neo’ actually exists. Here, inside my computer !

As u may have guessed by now, when it comes to the Net, I am a hardcore Nut. I love chatting. I love telling this ice cream lover and anyone else who might want to listen, all about the imaginary ‘Me’. As someone said, “No one knows u r a dog” how true…no one knows ur plain ‘ol ‘Me’ either. True, if otherwise, my life would be made to a movie....would you have brought the tickets...? I don’t want an answer to that.

Next to chatting comes music. In fact, more often than not, while I am chatting or not, I am listening to music. Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Phill Collins, Ricky Martin, Richard Marx…These are my favorites. All my friends ask me, with that music system behind me, why is it that I have to listen to a sou…sou…l… rendition by Phill Collins on the net, with so much static delay and hiss, that too at a low volume. Say what u will. There is something about the net. Something about the fact that u can actually get some great music out of this box that other people use for spreadsheets and word processors (Ugh! J . Aah! See I couldn’t resist it…the similes - J - or have u seen the saddie L…?

….That is what I am…a saddie…. when I can’t get through the chat line of ‘love_an_ice’. Yeah, I do have problems when I withdraw from the net – withdrawal symptoms which I earlier mentioned - I feel like an insomniac…with an utter lack of appetite…even at midnight, my eyes are wide open…eardrums close…breathing becomes heavy…body feels the weightlessness…mouth dries up…palms sweat…heart races…mind crawls….BP rises…stomach sinks…and I am sleepless…! …Withdrawal symptoms when one is deprived of his daily quota of Cocaine…U must’ve heard of this when u talk about Hash…or Diazepam…but not with the internet….well, that’s the age we live in…Yeah!…I am addicted to the Cyberia!

Now, as I lay in the darkness at the dimly lit ceiling. A bright halogen lamp on the adjacent road envelops my room in a strange, sci-fi glo. I expect ET to crawl in through the window, or the entire star trek team to march in. I try humming those melodious songs, or going over the day's happenings. I even try resorting to pleasantly distorted memories of my college days, lacing them with wild exaggerations and silly fantasies. But Nothing works...and sleep is hard to come by...and so I have to log in to internet again...

So, other than chatting and Music, what does the ‘Neo’ do online? All my friends love walking down the super malls in the city, window-shopping. What do they know? That this information super-highway is the largest window-shopping mall in the world. True, true, I cant buy my favorite kurta here (but believe it or not…sooner or later, our very own Dilli Haat is going to be online…) . But I can check out the latest styles. Levi is here. Versace, Armani, Tommy Hilfiger is all mine. Even the designer malls of MG Road are here, so that I can tell my ice-cream lover who the leading designers of my country are and what they have in store for her….Infact, she does the buying too… Indeed!! Who want to ogle at platform stuff in the local bazaars? And in the net, there is no one to question me, asking why I am loitering so long. In fact, they welcome it. Oops, what about Movies, check out that online clips of dreamy Kate Winslet and Micheal Pfeiffer, she is here too…. I can even have a chat with Lara Dutta or Priyanka Chopra, if I want to. Trailors, I watch them long before the guys in my office even hear the movie titles. And Aamir, Aishwarya, they are all here, just in front of me, and even J Lo…Wow! This world just Rocks!!!

Speaking of Cheese, have u ever tried a Maurya Sheraton Kadai Paneer? That is my other hangout! The websites of five star hotels. Have a look at their menu, and yummy, ur stomach is full. Other place where I frequent is the recipe sites. Okay agreed, I am no King when it comes to making home dishes. But when it comes to Egg Florentine, or Cheese Dumplings, dipped in Thousand Island sauce (don’t ask me what I used instead of the thousand island sauce) I certainly have the last word and it just thrills!!

Oh! I am hungry again…where’s it? Where’s the dial-up?, Where’s my GMail? Where’s the ice cream girl? Is she online? Wonder whether the tele department will operate today? I badly need my ‘fix’. Clark Kent goes into a tele booth to turn into a SuperMan….Peter Parker goes in to a washroom to turn into a SpiderMan! And I logon my computer to turn into ‘Neo’…HERE I COME……..‘love_an_ice23’...!!!

EndNote :- Its been a looong months since I heard anything from ‘love_an_ice’….Wonder what happened to her….? May be, one of those precision bombs fired by US might have hit her computer. Now even as I log in each day in the hope of finding her on my chat room, I hear on my TV that MCD has bull-dozed the MG Road Mall as well though it still remains on the Cyberia….And as the title song from ‘Titanic’ wafts across the room from the Celine Dion Site, what remains at the end of the day is the Hope of finding ‘love_an_ice’ once for all!

Will it....? Wont it....? A Ode to Murphy's Law!

When you live alone, you tend to develop strange habits! I too have one. Sitting on my bed, every time I fling an empty coke can at the dustbin, I make a wish! If the can lands inside the bin, the wish will come true and if doesn’t, the wish will not.

That’s when life reveals how cruel it can be. Every time I desperately want a wish to come true, the coke can lands – as a rule – outside the bin! And on occasions when I absentmindedly fling it, it lands – as a rule again, - straight on the bin! All I can say is LIFE LOVES TO NEEDLE YOU IN DESPERATE MOMENTS!!

…And that is Murphy’s Law is all about. It is simply a supposed law of nature…to the effect that ‘anything that can go wrong, will go wrong…’ or simply said, that which should not happen will happen and that which should happen will not! Interesting isn’t it?

I remember those desperate moments I spent at the bus-stop waiting for a bus to CP …but all the buses that came along then would be bound for South Extension. Then there were days when I had to be in South Extension in the next 30 minutes, but all the buses that came along would be bound for CP.

Life’s scheming ways do not end there. The delicious smells from my neighbor’s kitchen hit my nostrils only when I am hungry and there’s nothing in my kitchen and when I am too lazy to work. And the day’s I’ve eaten full stomach, the neighbors don’t seem to be cooking at all!

Now don’t tell me, it’s hunger that makes one’s nostrils pick-up the smell. Ok! But how do you explain this thing with the phone? The days I’m at home, bored out of my mind, and itching for a conversation, the cell refuses to tinkle! I keep checking the screen for any missed calls or SMSes, but No! I then click and see whether the incoming calls are barred or not, but that can’t be… coz, I just got a message from 123 asking me as to whether I needed a particular ‘personal loan’ or not…!! And then there are evenings when I am busy with my office or my colleagues, and everybody who knows me, suddenly remembers to call me. Have you ever wondered why you receive the maximum number of phone calls when you are either taking a shower or having your food!??

Think, you are in a movie house, it always happens that people coming in to watch the movie or the show after you, or after the show has started…always comes and sit on your front rows, blocking your view of the screen where your hero has just delivered a thrilling punch!

The examples are many. So I’ll now end with the most recent and the spookiest!

I begin my mornings with a walk in the nearby park where I used to run into this petite beauty! Her frizzy hair made her look like a Greek Goddess! I often thought of striking a conversation with her, but the stern gaze she gave me from behind her frameless lenses, made me abandon the idea! She’d haunt me for the rest of the day, and till the next morning, but who would like to begin the day with a snub? So I let it be…!!!

Then one day I went on a holiday after almost a year and visited a place called McLeodganj, stayed there in a Buddhist Monastery where they thought you Art like Zen and Kaizen and told you things like why it is good to be a celibate and how one should treat every woman in this planet as you would treat your mother…!

My purification went on for about three weeks, before I returned to real life and set out on my morn walk with a renewed vigor. In the park, someone squealed from behind “Hey! Hi! Where have you been so long? “. It was the frizzy haired girl, and this time around, she wasn’t sporting her frameless lenses too!

I got the lesson…WHEN YOU WANT SOMETHING, DON’T WANT IT. Life will give it to you on a platter then!!!

Epilogue: These days we both jog in the same direction. And yesterday, the frizzy haired girl asked me… “Have I not added fat?”. I was about to say “No”. But I thought, she might either not believe me, or think, I am not paying enough attention to notice anything about her….Now if I say “Yes”, she might still not believe me, or I might be faced with more questions that tests my patience…Like “Where have I put on weight?” “Why is this running around the park is not yielding anything?” and so on. So I decided to answer her diplomatically. I thought of saying “Dear, you’ve not only kept your figure, but you’ve added so much to it!” or else I could say “Le vie a ses raisons, que la raisen ne connait points” …”The life has its reasons, of which, reason knows nothing….” …I finally said this to her…which is in no way related to what she had asked me…!!!