The Smile Revolution:)

Doing laundry is on of those activities I sincerely hate. As I reluctantly moved towards the laundry area in the basement of my building, I meet this young American lady. And she gives me the most unassuming and warm smiles I have ever received from a stranger. And suddenly, doing laundry wasn't such a bad thing after all!!

This is one of the things I have to laud America for...exchanging greetings with strangers!

We don't do it in India...not at all. We smile at people we only know very very well.Guess, the Brits didn't do it too....otherwise we would have caught it!

I just attended a class where we studied the impact of viral marketing. Its enlightening to know what social networks are capable of doing.

I wonder what would happen if we start smiling at each other in India too.So many grad students come to India to study, so many Indians work here temporally, some even permanently. And we all go back sometime or the other. If we can help our network of friends to see this new perspective to social existence and they in their turn help their network of friends to do the same,think of what a revolution it can bring about!Yes, we are a country of 100 billion and its tough to bring about a social change. But we have strong social networks,I mean we come together as a nation when the need arises.The cynics will argue that in times when we are fighting poverty,excessive terrorism and unemployment,where does smiling fit in?May be it does not,on the face of it. But think about it, Ram's son is unemployed and the recent terrorist attacks have left him devoid of emotions,he doesn't know whether he will be able to feed his children for very long, he has high blood pressure and lung ailments...and then he meets a stranger who smiles unconditionally and says "How are you?".....The truth is, we all want to belong,to be paid attention to, to be loved!!

Lets bring about this change!