Some cake, some smiles

A customary query that follows a Happy New Year wish on the phone is, `What did you do?' or How did it go? Back home in Bangalore, for the last few years it was about walking across the road to an old neighbour's home to wish. Back in my school and college days, it was unmatched fun when a bunch of us girls and boys would organise Christmas games, races and contests for kids in our block of 16 homes and give away prizes before the clock struck 12. 

By midnight, elders would come out of their homes and wish everyone, smiles on their faces and egos left behind, irrespective of how subtly and how cruelly they fought it out at other times.

Last year, when my hubby and I walked into this rented home, we were lonely. Our new year arrived almost unannounced, as we contented ourselves watching fireworks lighting up the night sky from our window. This time, my friends who called up over the week and I had reason to talk of the smiles and `left-at-home' egos again.

After some cajoling, my neighbour Preeti and her husband organised an impromptu cake-cutting ritual for the kids around at 12. For over a quarter hour that followed, they ran around smearing cake at their family friends, eating some of it and wishing everyone around in the building's courtyard.

I live a life of relative anonymity in this place. But the turn of the year made me move over to complete strangers and wish them, even people who would generally not smile. For a while, it did not matter how I looked, or how well-dressed I was. It just mattered how some cake and some smiles brought about a lot of feel-good. It doesn't need a party to usher the new year in...just some smiles that cost nothing. After all, it is smiles that bring in peace and break walls. Peace that we Indians are suddenly yearning for, like the sane among Pakistanis, Nepalis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans...