Monday, May 5, 2008

Smile Manufacturers - "no artificial flavors"




I had a couple of tiresome weeks at work >> really long days tiring me up mentally , so planned to chill out the weekend .. so part of the plan i watched the movie 'motorcycle diaries'.. am a fan of Che , there was a part in the movie that touched me the most when Che swims across the river dividing the leper colony and the doctor's quarters to celebrate his birthday along with the lepers.. That was really a great thing to do as Che was asthmatic and the river water was very cold to venture, except for the True Smiles there was no other 'return on investment' ..

They are the true smile manufacturers - the others in the list who come to my mind and little knowledge are Baba Amte, Mother Teresa etc. I am a stern believer that if you can extract the real smiles out of people around you - you have done something great and it always brings a genuine 70mm on ur face too ....

One more instance when i've seen that real smile was when myself and my close friend made a trip to pondy. We had reserved a hut styled room alongside the seashore for a a couple of nights .We enquired what the taxi fare must be and it was around 1500 - 2K bucks for up and down - we thot we can put that use at some good place in pondy. The mrng we packd our bags and just hopped into an mtc bus to pondy - 22 bucks each with a movie for free ;-) and lots of passengers for free-looking and commenting .. We reached pondy in abt 3 hours - around 830ish.. checked into our hut alongside the shore..it had a mini fridge - we didnt dare take anything out of it coz the small water bottle (ironically named himalaya) had a sticker on it "saying loud - I would cost u 70 bucks" (now i got the naming convention being followed).We then wanted to walk by the beach ,but my friend and we being nature lovers didnt want the resort's barrier to stop our morning walk - so we planned to jump the wall and have a free stroll>>>
Call it destiny or balancing the food chain - while enjoying da waves and walking we came across a group of local fishermen , huddled together and picking out fishes from their net - their overnight catch !! My eyes popped out and my friend could sense that all - we sat there and as i am a lover of crab , asked them to pack some crabs for me. I paid 100 bucks and they had about half a bucket of fresh caught crab for me - and trust me they pickd the best ones. You end up paying more than double of it for about 1/20 of the quantity - now i know what supply chain means .. ;-) Then i started a convo abt how i wanted to taste them right now but handicapped for a kitchen etc etc., they were so happy to help us out - come back in an hour we shall have it ready - golden words of the moment !! We left the beach - took an auto - bought a bottle of bacardi white - at chennai we cud've ended up with green label or bagpiper >> and returned back after an hour. I still remember the smiles and gleam on their faces when we returned and positioned ourselves in their sheds by the shore - far more comfy and lovable than our 1500 per nite cabin. We had a great meal - fresh crabs cooked in local ground spices . hmm i donno how much i ate - but again its for balancing the food chain as many guys dont take crab - think of a situation if crabs were not eaten find crabs walking sideways all over our roads - not good right ;-) thank me !!! Got new friends in pandian , bhoomi etc etc. We spent a gr8 amount of time talking - their worries were mainly abt their children growing up and their education. So the next time we went we had taken some books along for them ... the smiles on their faces were instantaneous - the 100% genuine smiles .... We took back three things 'lotsaa satisfaction' , 'tons of genuine smile memories' & a promise of spending a night in the catamaran with open skies and sea below with lots of crabs and us between
One thing for sure - a genuine smile doesnt just involve ur lips - it needs support from ur eyes too; same thing holds good for a genuine kiss tooooooooooooooooooooo .. the meaning of the word genuine is left out for ur judgement !!!

5 comments:

Prabhu Infant said...

Genuine smile. . . Very rare to find these days.

maroon-beret said...

That is why i photographed it ;-)

Justbeing-Sree said...

Here's a genuine & scinitillating smile for your narration :)) btw ur blog is never complete without description of food he he gooood

Prabhu Infant said...

@boss: I forgot to notice the smile. Was concentrating on the food. Fresh crabs, home made, sea shore - Tantalizing combination! :-)

Raghav said...

" a genuine smile doesnt just involve ur lips - it needs support from ur eyes too "

What an idea Setji... :D
Jokes apart, I guess this is the page that pushed me to turn all the pages of ur whole blog. Keep going sir.