A Little Smile Is All It Takes

T-shirts with little messages on them are back in fashion I hear. Some are saucy, some cliched, some really good. When I was little, the most common messages would be 'Smile is the opposite of a frown', 'Smile- it improves your face value'.... you know, the ones with the word smile somewhere.

The point I am trying to make here is how useful a smile can be. And i dont mean it in the sense of a smile to heal a fight....blah...blah...the cliched stuff. The greatest use of a smile is when you have no clue as to what the person in front of you is saying. I have done this and seen it so many times.

There you are talking to your mother's second cousin's brother-in-law's son talking about who attended his sister-in-law's wedding and what the menu was or some uncle you are meeting for the first time telling you how good/bad your profession is and how absolutely amazingly talented his daughter is.....(or any equally unenviable situation you may find yourself is!). The other person is going on about God knows what and your mother has taught you to be respectable to your elders no matter how irritating they are (atleast my ma did grrrr!). What do you do? You think about what you wish and plaster a silly grin on your face to look like you are actually interested.

No, dont feel guilty. I have done it more times than I want to remember, more times than I have confessed to Lord Krishna. So this is where a smile comes in handy...when you dont understand, when you dont want to understand....when you dont care... when relatives are a pain in you know where... :-) when life is a sucker... smile....it works.
And they need to start putting these nuggets of my brilliant advice on t-shirts too!

I am thinking of going to Madikeri tomorrow. Ma was talking about this great slide show of Kailash mountain. And I have promised myself a break from writing and technology. See you on Monday (?).