16/218 the woman who smiled at me What can a smile do to a man? In my initial days of living alone I had two families in my neighborhood. One of them was run by a young mother of three whose husband worked away in some private job. Though I used to remain out of my room most of the days because of cricket but I often noticed that the woman was always working nonstop. I also realised that taking care of three little children is no easy job. She would take the two elder girls to school and tuition and brought them back from there. She used to go to the market for the daily necessaries and she would cook for the kids. Sometimes she would be seen cleaning and sometimes she would be washing the clothes. All in all, she was always doing something! I on the other hand, was a very boring kind of guy –I still am– so I didn't bother interacting much with her or the other neighbouring people. I'd go to play, come back and close the door on them, literally. It continued for a little while until one evening when I was feeling hungry but was in no mood to cook. Cooking was a fairly new job and I was terrible at it. Moreover, I couldn't decide what vegetables to cook for the night. Actually, I didn't want to. I actually lived on noodles for some time simply because it was easy. So I was lying on the bed wondering what to cook or if I wanted to cook anything at all. And it happened. I heard a couple knocks on the door. I opened door casually and found the woman with a plate of food on her hand. Some pudis, cake, chhole, and aloo gobhi. She told me smilingly that it was her son's birthday. I smiled back and congratulated her. Then she was gone. Now I was happy because I had good food without effort. I thanked god for sending this smiling woman for this exhausted boy. After this incident, our interactions became more frequent.
