Skip to main content

Smile

Photo by Joshi Daniel
I love smiles. They make a huge difference to the way people perceive and communicate. A smile can melt the snow that envelopes the indifferent heart. It can douse fires and sprout blooms. I consider myself particularly fortunate because my days begin with a thousand smiles. The way from the parking space to the staffroom of my school is strewn with angelic smiles.

   One of the unwritten rules in my class is that everyone should keep a smiling face. Smiles make the classroom almost paradisiacal. Both teaching and learning become fun with all those smiles lighting up the air.

   Once a student decided to exhibit her displeasure with me by presenting me the most stoic indifference possible because I had given her less marks in a test than she thought she deserved. My explanation that her answer did not match her potential did not convince her. I waited for her natural beatific smile to return to her naughty cheeks below her dancing eyes. But her resolve to punish me surpassed my persuasions until I confronted her with a personal colloquy which eventually led to the beginning of an unforgettable relationship. One of the most enchanting young personalities I ever came across unfolded itself because of my love of smiles.

   I admit that outside the school campus I don’t smile as much as I would love to. The adult world is too funny a place to extract smiles from me. There are too many people out there who insist on choosing what I should believe in, write about, and even eat!  I have chosen to stay away from that world as far as possible. I have embraced solitude gladly outside the classroom. There is a plenitude of smiles in that solitary world, left by unforgettable people as indelible imprints in the deepest chambers of my heart.  

PS. Written for In[di]spire Edition 225: #Smile

Comments

  1. Rewritten with a reward to past smiles. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. My husband and I went to the petrol pump there was a huge que, suddenly we were ushered ahead of the disarrayed vehicle and we got we could get out of the place fast. My husband asked thanked the boy and was about to tip him, the boy told my husband,"Madam is the only one who smiles when she comes to fill petrol and asks me about my day."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very well-written.
    Loved your post:)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...