Friday 6 February 2015

Smile, You’re Alive !

Ever since I moved to India's IT capital from Mumbai, I noticed a few things that are different. For me since comprehending Marathi was not so easy, therefore Kannada is akin to solving Irodov. However, the idli and dosas are mouth-watering here and the coconut is the revered entity. I guess liquor shops would be the only place where coconut is not present in any of its form. Footpaths are as wide as they could be with huge trees leaving less space for roads, and the weather makes walking out of AC rooms irresistible. Of course, not to forget the traffic. The life of Bangaloreans is so much wound around this word that one could understand only after spending some time here. The roads are predominantly occupied by huge Volvo buses and Indica cars, and they both in unison make traffic congestion even worse as if they have a relatedness that drives them crazy at the same time. Unlike Mumbai, one can board the bus from any point, irrespective of whether it is a bus stop or not, for the bus drivers gladly respond to the hand waves by halting bus right in the middle of a crowded road. But this generosity is not ubiquitous. Barring the friendly bus drivers, most of the other people as a result of perhaps their crawl on the streets almost daily, choose to speed up whenever and wherever possible. Even a 20 feet open stretch is not spared and speed breakers are rather insignificant.

All this makes life tough for pedestrians. Crossing road is a nightmare in daylight, and if this is the situation for so-called humans, just imagine what it would be for street animals, many of them shrieking and dying amidst human rage to speed.

A few days back while returning from office, I saw a skinny individual, who looked to be in his late twenties, dressed up neatly with nicely combed hair and dark eyes holding a sign and standing in the middle of the road. Yes, he was standing right in the middle of the road which is among the busiest ones in the city. His intrepidity attracted attention from everyone who saw him and left most of them in awe. As we approached this fellow, my cab driver hurled abuses that made me realize that Hindi was driver’s mother tongue. But perhaps, he didn't know how to read English, else his reaction would have been different. The signboard held firmly above the head of this person read, “Smile, You’re Alive”. As people read the message, he eagerly gazed the onlooker’s face expecting a smile, with one on his own.

The smiling man with the sign board was infectious; everyone left him with a smile. Fearless of the speedy wheels mounted with iron skeletons, he was standing there to spread a wonderful message. He certainly would have been aware of the risk he had taken to pull many of us out from our calendars and mailboxes, just to remind that we were alive. Despite of smoke, sound and headlights, he was smiling and making others smile.

Life is a gift from the Almighty, and perhaps we can payback with smiles – how many we bring on the face of others, and how much we could have for ourselves. Amazingly, the most unique aspect of the smiling face is the transmission power - people catch it at a lightening pace. Smile is a human attribute that manifests Divine, and therefore let us smile as much as possible, and thereby spread it even more.

Smile,
You’re Alive.