Smile Please

It was a warm clear Sunday afternoon when I was lying on my bed disorderly. I had my bed tea a little late that day. While I was enjoying the sip, I demanded for the newspaper. The love for reading the happenings in surroundings with the morning tea had developed in me over many years. Newspaper was on my lap in no time. The best thing of being the youngest in a family is that you are listened and pampered by your mother. At least I feel the same. I was in no mood to do anything but to open the sports page. While I was at the edge of completion of my tea, my sight got struck to the words written in bold ‘Smile Please- a Photography Competition’. I thought to take part in it. It had never happened with me although I was having a camera since so many years but that day unknowingly I decided to try for something I hadn’t done before. I immediately got out of my bed, prepared my Canon kit and went out with no specific place in my mind. I was passing through the hustle bustle of the city, seeking a face for my submission in the competition, but nothing infatuated me. The intense dark pollution had created the drastic effects on the people of my city. That could be seen on their dull faces. But I was capturing them to see how a photograph could make people look good. Then I continued the road which led me to the outskirts of the metropolis. The day was becoming darker while I was in search of some smiling face which could illumine that situation. Banyan trees in lane were guiding me to the never finishing road on which I had been driving since two hours. Finally I stopped my bike under one of those Banyan trees. The place seemed to be a kind of village. There I saw a group of women carrying the earthen pots on their heads. They in their colorful Punjabi suits were passing through the fields. I asked them to simply smile looking in the camera. The smile was quite pretty with the fraction of fakeness in it. That I sooner realized after observing the shots for some while. Only hope was dependent on the wait, the wait for the beautiful face with extraordinary smile. The vehicles were coming and going in no time making me feel the air produced by their speedy movements. It made me feel thrived as if I had been there to sense that magical touch of air. But in actual people came and went, I captured their cheesy smiles. None of my photographs were in condition to be the part of the national competition. I was disappointed and felt that those competitions were not my thing. It might be due to the pressure of winning but I forgot that competition and turned my way back to the city. I was driving smoothly when I saw a herd, a group of buffaloes entering into a cropland. The dust particles propagating in the air creating a translucent view all over attracted me the most to put my ride on halt. I immediately got down from my bike and went running close to those grey buffaloes. I took some shots from the back, then from the front, composing the best of the frame. While I was taking pictures from the side, I was stepping backwards. Suddenly someone ran into me. As I turned my head back, I saw a brown boy in his early teen, dressed in a long black shabby kurta and violet dhoti, holding a stick on his shoulder. I had never seen such young herdsman before. He was wearing a broken pair of slippers. It’s color was showing that he used to work in a mud. At the time when I was observing the every bit of his appearance, he was standing still with the smile. I placed my eye before the viewfinder of my camera to capture that sudden beauty of the scene. It was the most beautiful smile I had ever seen on somebody’s face with whom I hadn’t exchanged a single word. A few hours before I was helping people in living out their fake smiles while dying mine at the same time, one broad smile brought another broad one to my face. It was the best smile. It was the only one which was not followed by the common jargon of somebody like me telling others to, “Smile Please”.