A Smile is Worth a Thousand Brawls

As you travel on life's way
With its many ups and downs,
Remember, it's quite true to say,
"One smile is worth a dozen frowns."

Among the world's expensive things,
A smile is very cheap.
And when you give a smile away,
You get one back to keep.

So, when a friend has sadness on his face
With troubles 'round him piled,
The world will seem a better place,
All because you smiled.

I don’t know who wrote this, but I try to derive inspiration for this poem while driving on Bangalore roads. Every second you find an indisciplined auto driver overtaking you, lanes don’t seem to exist; or a car or an auto parked on a narrow busy road causing even more commotion. Honking on a red light is a common practice. Well, who wouldn’t get frustrated, it’s just a matter of time? And the way things stand as of now, it’s not getting any better.

To top it all, every now and then I find someone giving me a stare like I have committed the worst crime in the world or shouting nasty abuses. Getting into a brawl or exchanging “pleasantries” is not very uncommon.

Now I have two options. One, succumb to the pressure and add to the growing number of people with angry frustrated faces. I have seen this happening to me of late; the moment I get on the road, I start finding faults with the way people drive or jump signals and end up cursing them, or get into occasional verbal exchanges, without realizing I am no different. Others are probably thinking the same about me. And end of the day, this does no good, I end up reaching office in a very bad mood, still cursing the auto wallah who overtook me or the driver who honked at me!!

The other option I try sometimes is raising my hand and giving a smile, it could be an understanding or an apologetic smile. It doesn’t matter who is at fault. More often than not, I get a similar response. After all, the other person is probably going through similar emotions and a smile is always a welcome change. This is not easy as it is against your instinct. And of course, this doesn’t change the way the traffic flows or people drive in the city and I still get a little frustrated when on road but it does make me feel much better in the end. Who wants to see angry and irritated faces around oneself? I have noticed, even a single person giving an understanding smile dissolves all my anger and invariably makes me smile, and if I can do that to someone, that lightens both our moods.

They say smile is contagious. Maybe this will bring about smiles on the faces of a few more people. And may be, just maybe, some might change the way they drive.