When 500 people began to get happy

This year, December 6th fell on a Saturday.

So what's the big deal?

There is a December every year and the 6th day of the month also comes every month.

So what's the big deal on it coming on a Saturday this year?

Well it fell on a Saturday even in 2009.

As in most of the Decembers in Delhi that day was also mildly cloudy and crispy cold with some sunlight sneaking through.

Something happened that day that I will never forget in my life; something I will forever remember in my life.

I had to take my son to his paediatrician for a regular check up and I was driving my mother-in-law's old greyish-blue Maruti 800 with the number plate ending in 4245.

Just as we turned left on the Delhi-NOIDA link road from our Mayur Vihar Phase 1 colony, I noticed the weather and also the bleak, expressionless faces of the other drivers on the road.

They all looked sad and spiritually constipated. Nobody seemed happy. Maybe they were all focussing on their drive and the road ahead even as their minds must have been processing lots thoughts and demands on them.

It struck me that maybe we could make them happy.

My son who was just 8 days short of turning 5 was in the back seat; happy as a lark; looking outside with wide happy eyes and muttering to himself.

I looked at him through the rear view mirror, called out his pet name and asked him if he'd like to have a challenge.

Being just 5, he was up for it.

I told him that let's make people happy today and asked him to wave to the drivers behind us and to blow kisses at them given how sad they all looked.

He was super excited and yet deflated in less than a minute.

You may have guessed it right. Nobody waved back at him nor blew kisses back at him.

I had read somewhere that when a child smiles at you, you should smile back.

As I sat down to write this today, I checked and found the original quote by the Australian poet Pam Brown. She says:

“Always smile back at little children. To ignore them is to destroy their belief that the world is good.”

Well that's what my son might have experienced that day a bit and he sat upset in the car with his arms tightly crossed across his chest. He refused to try again.

I was also a bit upset by it all.

But back then, I wasn't ready to give up that easily on the humankind.

On our way back from the doctor's clinic in New Friends Colony, I decided to give it one more try.

Just as I was about to take a U-turn from under the Ashram flyover, I asked my son to give it one more try.

With a small bit of resistance, he agreed to give it just one more try.

Thankfully, there was a good samaritan that day just behind us in a grey Maruti Omni van who waved and blew the kiss back.

My son was elated and started clapping and jumping in the car.

I didn't have to tell him to continue. He did that on his own and they both unleashed a back and forth tennis match of waves and flying kisses.

It started getting difficult for me to focus on the road ahead and keep a watch on him and the other car at the back. Thankfully, it being a Saturday morning back in 2009, there wasn't much traffic on the road and the van kept up with us till we took a right turn towards Mayur Vihar Extension. The other driver waved past my son and went ahead on the NOIDA-Delhi link road.

As soon as we reached home, my son ran to his mother who was carrying our second child and was just 2 months short of delivery; hugged her around her belly and said that he made 500 people happy!!

And I was like, 'Come on, you just made one person happy. How come it is 500?'

He turned towards me with his hands of his tiny little hips and with an all confident look on his face, said the following:

"Achha, that uncle will go home and tell his son what I did. They both will go out and do that to others. Eventually it will be 500 people."

The rest, I need not write.

You can very well imagine and be hopeful.

But today I wrote this to present that memory as a gift for my son who turns 21 years old today.

😌😌🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽