Too tough to smile……….

I had a discussion with my friend about the smiling factor. He was asking me why does it happen in India that a person whom you know by face, whom you would have seen regularly at workplace, gym or some where else and both of you know each other by face never smiles seeing you. He recalls when he was in UK, he used to exchange smiles even with the strangers. Then how come in India, a person who knows you feels so much anxious to exchange smile. I could not answer that time and after a lot of contemplation I am writing this blog.

I believe every country has a particular way of living in society and every society has its own positive and negative points. India is a big country with a great population where people have a lot of worries .Every where everyone is fighting to win every moment in this race of life, and this feeling of insecurity takes away the feel for human values and principles. For example in a common Indian market, how many people care to be in queue? Leave alone smiling to strangers, people sometimes ignore the known ones. Although we are taught from childhood to respect elders and say “Namaste Uncle/Aunti”, what is our reaction when we see an old person is standing in a crowd to snatch his/her share.

US, UK and other countries are very less populated and have a good infrastructure. People have better facilities and they enjoy even waiting for the bus or the traffic single to become green as it is comfortable for them. People greeting with smiles to each other is very normal there.

Smiling is a nature’s gift to human being but in India smiling at opposite sex person means you are hitting on her/him. Moreover if a male does this on a public place like a bus stop, the very next day you can see his photo in news paper getting a nice mass beating. If a girl smiles at you, people start talking about her character. What a fun when we are misunderstanding the gift of nature.

We talk about passing smile seeing some stranger in India but when a stranger asking for help after an accident, how many hearts melt. Everyone knows the consequences of involving in strange person’s matters. My point here is the value of human emotion, life and morals is relatively lower in India. When there is a single bus coming and people have to rush to take seat, who cares to smile to a stranger or ask someone to catch the bus who is in his/her world. Even our life is not affected by the bomb blasts and people trade on the same spot to earn a livelihood on the very next day. When Indians/Asians go to UK or US or any other country, they try to find out some one whom they can recognize. There only they realize the importance of people with whom they can talk and walk. After all man is a social animal and to be in society one has to create some space and the ways can be to smile seeing a stranger or help some one from the same origin. Since in India, people have already a big society/friend circle/family to share everything, everyone feels very strange to see some one stranger smiling at us. All in all we take every human for granted and ignore them. We hate to be in crowd even when we are a part of it be in market or traffic.