Smile

The search for freedom is one of the most frequented paths by any individual. The context of freedom conceived by each person would vary in accordance to the ‘attribute matrix’ that exists as part of every one. The shades of origin, nativity, religion, community, education etc would mould the path to the conquest of freedom. Freedom from ethnic disparities, financial and economic imbalances, human rights etc may be the conquests that are featured most in the brain storming sessions of international community. As it is observed by many studies, an ordinary man may not associate most of these issues with his day to day thoughts and concerns. But there is one conquest that is linked with each and every person, the freedom from ‘Nostalgia’, his/her past. I have not seen any person who has had a completely satisfying life. The peripheral projected image in most cases would be deceiving.

Yesterday I saw a movie ‘Autograph’. The movie features the life of any ordinary person, who is on a retrospection. He has a reason for this journey as well, to invite his peers at school and college for his wedding. The initial destination is the village in Tamil Nadu where he did his schooling and we are shown the glimpses of the adolescent love he had then and later shows his love with her three kids. He moves on to Kerala, where he did his graduation and again a beautiful singer steals his heart. The love fails miserably and he is plunged into distress and resorts to the “ever so comforting, alcohol”! The sentiments from his parents urge him to go to the capital city in search of a job. The movie then features the unemployed youth with their tolerable difficulties. The hero comes up with an innovative idea of job search which gets attention of an advertising agency which hires them and suddenly they find themselves on the fast track. In between the hero meets his third ‘friend who is a girl’ who goes out of her way to support him especially when his love from Kerala, now a widow comes back to picture. In the end he is engaged to a fourth girl, who wonders whether he is a ‘love failure’ seeing the hero’s beard.

Now the reason I narrated the entire story is because the person featured in the movie has shades of all of us. He is one person captured by his past. Most of us have different issues. Though the movie could have finished in two hours instead of three and a half, I guess the rewind in our life goes for a life time. Almost every one of us fights this struggle. Some might be lucky to let loose some or most of the past but most are less fortunate. This struggle could make ones life miserable and I have seen many who burn their life in it.

I have followed a method which has made a considerable change in my life. I sure have had an “interesting past” and many who know me would agree on the same. There had been time when all the feelings crept into me. Then one day I saw a placard which said, “Lent a Smile”. It was a display board for one of the charitable institutions urging public to donate for a noble cause and had two jovial faces. The same day, when I was coming back in the bus, I saw a neatly dressed female, in her early twenties taking care of the kids from street. Those smiling faces in the ugly slumps brought a new insight in me. If only I could smile, every moment of my life, the world would have been a better place to live in. I came back and buried all my nostalgia within me and took a third person view on it. I realized that it is not so hard to smile. When I smiled I saw that the world around me had a smile within. I felt so good and energized. It just changed my world!

As ‘Ahimsa’ which gave freedom to our land, I feel a smile could bring freedom to us from all our distress. Be it the struggle for freedom from ‘Nostalgia’ or any thing else, any one who could smile at his past is bound to have a beautiful future ahead. The world might not change, but your perspective on it would change and that would change the world for you.

“Smile, for it is a virtue blessed with love”. It could change your life for ever.:-)