Smiles

A warm golden yellow sun quite pleasantly beaming on your eyelashes. A sweating, heavily breathing you with still enough desire and energy to live an entire day and smile on your face which is for absolutely nothing but thoughts in your own mind is the way I describe my perfect tea time evening in winter.

On two such evenings, on two such walks, two such thoughts that brought two such smiles on my face:

I.

Me, age 20, wearing a worn out, torn jeans on soft cotton crumpled white dirty shirt. Left sandal broken near the little finger, legs filthy with dirt since I have been walking without socks the entire day, a blue tattered back pack with holes on its bottom and an expensive leather wallet, almost empty.Wandering lazily, hands in pocket, eyes on the road and around, mind-- dreaming. Dreams that may or may not come true, hopes that may or may not materialize. A body that will certainly support whatever I decide to do, for a few years at least.

I don’t stay like that because I don’t have a choice. I stay like that, because I do.

On my right, an old lady is limping with a walker for support. A face freshly washed. Smells talc. Diamond necklace in her neck, pearl ear rings with a diamond in the centre. Diamond ring in a finger on hand. Expensive, pink, cotton saree freshly ironed. Smile on face but wrinkles too. Open eyes that see, but they’re deep, hollowed. They don’t know whether to dream or to hope. A life that has just gone by…

Thought that brings a smile on my face: Which of us two is richer?

II.

Taste of my 7.00 PM coffee still in my mouth. Wearing lanky shorts, slippers and a T for comfort; lazily walking on Marine Drive in Bombay.

A big business tycoon comes jogging. A body guard on each side, a white expensive imported car following him. The moment he is tired, he will just sit in the car right there and go back. His head band is Nike, other brands, too expensive for me to know. Because he is famous, I know he didn’t earn all this, he was born in it.

Someone behind me utters: “What a life! A ready made business empire, fame like that, power like that and money like that, what else is there to earn?”

I see a beggar lying on the foot path on the opposite side. He is always right there, lying in that same fashion. Filthy, worn out, ill fitting clothes, more displaying his privates that covering them, the way he lies making their sight more prominent. He doesn’t care about food etc. He doesn’t have to. Eats whatever they throw at him, drinks from whatever they donate. No dreams, no goals, nowhere to be and no where to go. Once I asked him his life story, he said he didn’t earn all that, he was born in it.

Thought that brings smile on my face: Who is poorer, the business tycoon or the beggar?

The Happy Prince.