Smile Please !!!

There was a time in my life as a teenager when my face in all my  photographs would be like this ('_')  , yea right! a pair of eyes looking blankly at the camera minus the smile.As a teen I was an angry guy. Just cross at the world ,at people,at circumstances, at everything in general.By principle I found it very difficult to smile. Even a 'smile please ' would elicit a forceful pulling of my cheeks backwards. I would literally say 'cheese' in my mind to bring out a smile and if there was any delay in clicking the pic I would have to start the process all over again. I had real anger issues which I was unable to express it. Anyhow I have come a long way since then and have mellowed down a bit. And as time passed by, several experiences have taught me to smile and appreciate  it's beauty and see it's presence in everyday life.Just the other day in the mall I saw this middle aged couple. Where I saw a big smile on the lady's face as she stood on the escalator while her husband held her steady. From the look of things her first ride on an escalator I guess.But the smile absolutely priceless.                             I recently did this one week experiment, in which I passed a smile to everyone that met my eye in the course of the day. Be it a pretty girl, an old man, kids or  strangers.And guess what everyone  almost 90% of the people returned a smile except the pretty girls and those characters resembling Scrooge from Charles Dickens 'The Christmas Story' ,who were perpetually nasty and angry by force of habit.(BTW a couple of pretty girls did smile back ) .So the take home point for me is smile,smile and smile,nobody gets offended when you smile.                             We all have problems, some huge and some very small. That's what life is all about , one giant roller coaster ride with its ups and down. But all that should not bog us down. A smile is what tells us that it will be all right when our world seems topsy turvy.When we see our troubles we should see it in light those having a bigger problems than ours. At my workplace I see lot of kids with cancer on a plethora of chemotherapy and countless pricks for the IV cannulas and blood tests .But despite all the pain these kids give one of the most beautiful smiles.It's an humbling experience.It happened with me as one day I was having an exceptionally bad day at work and then out of nowhere I see this small girl ,diagnosed with cancer , her hair all gone and she gave me one of the best smiles of my life almost angelic.It was as if to say there's more to life than a bad day at work.Just a gentle reminder as to how inconsequential my problems are in the whole scheme of things.                                                We all smile for different reasons.We smile to acknowledge someone we know,when we remember something funny,pleasant or memorable and for countless other reasons. Nobody teaches us to smile.It comes naturally to us.But for those who want some reason to smile.I'l give you some.So here I go.                  Firstly it's less work.I had once read somewhere that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. So if you frown more you end up working more. So all you lazy bums who have an aversion to hard work.Here's some good new. Start smiling or else you inadvertently end up working hard.
            Secondly it's free. Yea you heard it right. It's absolutely free.It costs you nothing .You give one and you receive one back too. Now that's a good deal ain't it.You smile freely and you get one back for free. So all you cheapsters. This is something that should drive you ecstatic.  
            Thirdly it's a life saver. Many a times I was saved from a potential social embarrassment.When I smiled at my friend and he pointed a wayward cumin or a notoriously resistant piece of food stuck in between the gums and teeth.Phew! disaster averted.
            And finally its aestheticlly pleasing . We humans are very visual beings.We like something that is beautiful and easy on the eyes. Imagine seeing a body rotting and on the other hand imagine a baby smile. Yea,you see your different reactions.That's what I'm talking about.Hmmm I hope you get it. So all you people keep smiling (like my friend says) you never know who might fall in love with your smile.

New beginnings ????

 Boy time does fly by. It's like poof and u miss it.It's been six months since my move. My life has been a blur since I moved from  the idyllic,picturesque ,small , sleepy little excuse of a town in the Himalayas to the City Beautiful.                            Let me tell you a little about my life in this new place.  The place where I now work is a behemoth of an institution and my previous workplace is not even a fraction of it. (Though if not for financial constraints I would prefer to  work in my old place at any given time.)Here a sea of humanity comprising of doctors, nurses,paramedics ,students, technologists, security personnel, patients and relatives (the list is almost endless ) converge , each with their own purpose.The emergency rooms are never empty , corridors never silent,  OPDs teeming with people jostling for their turn. Weary , despondent, frustrated and worried people all around everyone with their own set of problems. Just reminds how apt the first few lines from the song 'sea of faces' by kutless is.I see the city lights all around me / Everyone's obscure / Ten million people each with their problems . But still I'm amazed at the sheer number of people that are treated here. From the rarest to the commonest ailments are dealt with. Sometimes people ask me how's work ? Well I don't know where to begin from ?                              Hmmm so that was a small description about my work and I might have painted a very bleak , sad, dismal picture but that's not all to my life here. I have a bunch of friends who have energy equalling a group of rambunctious school kids , who laugh out so loud as if they are without a care in the world . Be it at some random stranger's mistake of placing his foot in a dustbin while crossing a low lying fence or being the only people to laugh out loud in a full cinema theatre. They are the ones who helped me settle effortlessly with getting a gazillion paperwork done which is a must when joining a public sector and countless other ways ( thanks guys !!!). Sometimes these guys can be so mental they will drive a normal person insane.Also guess what I have become a bit deaf too. You might be wondering how . Well most of my friends if not all of them have a penchant for talking so loud as they have amplifiers attached to their larynx or voice box . But that's who my friends are. A crazy lot each with their quirks and uniqueness.  And yea other than that loads of movies, KFC , coffee and fun; reminds me of college days minus the studying and classes.                                   Anyhoo!!! Coming to a new city , new place , new people is always difficult . Whenever ever I come to a new place ( this being the third city in seven years) I come with no expectations only with the thought of an opportunity for a new beginning, a fresh start. But then believe it or not I make the same mistakes all over again. Try as I might I inadvertently end up doing the same bloopers, blunders , errors, fallacy ( or any other synonyms u might fancy ) and that's why ??? in the title . So here's me crossing my fingers, toes, heart , eyes , or whatever there is to cross and hoping against hope that this might be the beginning like never before.