A Smile, That Saved More Than My Weekend

Dr. Jerome Motto, a psychologist wrote about a guy in his thirties, who jumped to death in 1970 from the infamous Golden Gate Bridge, which often termed as a marvel of technology, but a social failure. The reason was haunting. Deeply haunting. The guy wrote his suicide note, or rather ‘life note’ as below:

But no one smiled at him. No one. Even witnesses told their accounts later about how the guy waited on the railing of bridge for hours till sunset and kept smiling at random people.

I remembered late writer Sunil Ganguly too wrote about the incident in his famous travelogue on Paris “Chobir Deshe, Kobitar Deshe” (In country of Paintings, In the country of Poems), while pointing towards the relative heartlessness of crowd.

I know, in this world of unreasonable earthly madness, this surreal act of lunacy sounds silly and immature. Maybe empty to many. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the pain and hopelessness of that poor guy standing on the verge of death, putting his life on just a smile from a random person. What was that? Was the guy insane or were the persons crossing him unkind and indifferent? Or, was it a test for whole future mankind?

When my mom called me Tuesday night, I was laid on sofa, eyes closed. I told her I had a headache and needed rest. I texted Taniya same. And then went to bed and slept.

Wednesday morning, the first thing came to my mind that why not try the test. Today itself. Surely the test was crazy and I too had no courage to commit suicide or something, but I told myself, I’m going to office. If no stranger smiles at me before the end of day, I won’t drink at weekend.

The metro was full, and I stood at the corner hoping to catch any glance of a stranger. But everybody was busy. Phones, books, newspapers, friends, sleep. Nobody was free for a smile. I found myself among them any other day. At morning, the test sounded so easy, so achievable and now when the metro reached Rajiv Chowk station and then Central Secretariat, and nobody reciprocated my smile, I started to panic.

This weekend was no ordinary weekend. There was holi, there was Good Friday and then two holidays. Four days, no office and I was alone in my flat. And on top of that, my refrigerator was full of chilled beers and wine, my cupboard had these bottles of scotch and tequila. It would be a harsh nightmare, if no one smiled at me till evening. Worse than suicide maybe. Panic was the only option.

My office guys smiled at me, but they were no strangers. The tea vendor smiled broad. But he too was familiar. I could try with security force guys, they seemed friendly, but then the spirit of the test would be gone. I chose to wait.

Whole day passed by. No luck. It was near evening. When I picked up my things and walked towards elevator, I totally understood the last minute frustration and agony of that guy, who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in 1970. At that moment, I wasn’t sorry for my ruined weekend, or my inferior complex that I looked bad, but for the humankind, where no one bothered. Even ants touched each other while passing by. But humans, they were evolved too much. Too much.

I stood in the elevator. My friends were waiting outside. We would go to metro station together. When the door was about to shut, I saw a figure entering hurriedly into the small space. A girl. She stood at one corner, diagonally opposite than mine. And when the elevator started falling down with a little jerk, she looked at me with full gaze and miracle happened. She smiled. A clear smile. I lost hope, and my expectation from her was least. She was a girl for God’s sake. But she smiled. And I smiled too.

We didn’t talk, I was too happy to talk. And when I was outside with my friends, I inhaled big. The unknown girl would never know. She just saved my weekend, my beers and my faith.