You don't need a password to read a face.

Have you ever tried to percolate inside the gravey face of a laborer? The sun-burnt skin, the wrinkled forehead, the stained teeth, the anxious eyes; all tell a story.

Have you noticed the twinkle in your eyes when you come across the face of a toddler with glowing skin, puffed-up cheeks and impish eyes?

Have you thought to dwell in to the psyche of a senior citizen with a face that reflects thoughtful attire, and a sage like glance?

What feelings do you come across when you see the face of a random stranger crossing the road? The face with sparse eyelids, flared up nasal alae and hollow cheekbones.

Do you forget the face of your childhood teachers? I remember my teachers’ faces to be loving, sagacious and full of authority. Did you ever think of their rides of lives at that particular period?

Did you ever tried to peep inside the foundation coated faces of those models that bear powerful rays of artificial lights every other day? Those florid and forced smiles, sculpted nasal bridge, lustrous skin and probing eyes.

With some experience at observing people, you can easily tell what all a person has gone through by giving a penetrating glance to a face. A pleasant life shows at the exterior, without any exceptions. Cosmetic means can hide to age-related changes to some extent, but when it comes to emotive sketching, the impressions over a face are permanent.

Take out some time to feel people’s psyche by looking at their faces. No face is ordinary; every face has a story worth telling. I am sure this experience would make your thought-process attain a different trajectory; a lovable one. 

Dolce Vita.

It concerns me a great deal when I come across someone who claims to have lost all hopes. In this crazy world of blind race to materialism and ephemeral gains, it means much if you manage to uphold your sanity. Most of us don’t take a lost battle nicely; we tend to take it a bit too personally. And the irony is that most of the times we don’t fight with an opponent; we fight with ourselves. So no matter who wins, you are destined to feel the pangs of defeat in such a stance. It’s high time when we must not glorify the life to be a battle; life is meant to grow, to learn and to enjoy your own existence.

Every other day we comes across various cases of adolescent depression, childhood obesity, refractory panic attacks, suicidal tendencies, road rages, overinflated self esteems and unexplained anxieties. It saddens me without limits.

What has happened to the concept of a dolce vita? Why do we torture our inner selves beyond their thresholds?

Why do you give yourself the screaming abdabs every now and then? Why don’t we decrease the unnecessary burdens that we are carrying just for the heck of it?

Why don’t we see life from a perspective that gives us a view to die for? Why do we fear failures? What is our definition of a failure? Does the definition of failure that you harbor needs to be retouched?

Why do you exhaust yourself with attacks aimed at yourself? It’s a thorn coated life, but that shouldn’t stop you from appreciating the juices inside.

Sans Souci of Childhood.

A person is in Dixie’s land before he turns a teenager; to be in clover is the motto of childhood. As a child, I treaded on enchanted grounds commanding the commotion every possible moment. I used to be a nimble-footed child and the studded blobs of mischief used to be my trademark. At every given or created opportunity, I used to excel in rodomontade; sometimes I used to follow rules, and at the other times rules used to follow me. I loved to win every time in every activity just like any other child.

I used to play merciless pranks on my friends and my teachers with equal gusto. I clearly remember putting an incensed fire-cracker beneath the wooden chair of my Sanskrit teacher as she just settled in; every punishment that later followed was worth the sight that we witnessed looking at her changing facial gestures as the fire-cracker exploded. It was fun; pure adolescent fun. Once I placed a small puppy, the progeny of a stray dog, in the table of my English teacher. As she opened the drawer, to her horrid disbelief, the canine came out crawling. She produced this ear-splitting scream and we, the kids, were in seventh heaven with sweltering joy. I enjoyed all the attention and felt like a star; the fact that I was the class monitor never made me deter from any of the prank-playing motives.

As I was the best scholar in my school, and was good at extra-curricular activities as well, the tag of class monitor came naturally to me. With every discordant deed that amounted to the saucy pranks played by me, requests were made to the school principal to dethrone me of my class monitor-ship by the affected souls; however, the second best student was way behind me so dethroning never actually happened. Alas, nothing can replicate those magical days of our lives; long live childhood.

You can’t love your parents enough.

It takes a lot of courage to reminisce the childhood days in slow motion, in sepia tone. We hold most of the moments so close to our hearts that a lively whisk to the blob of memories proves to arrhythmia-inducing mechanism. Don’t you get stirred up when you remember the days of hand-cooked, warm and delicious meals, served always on time and in abundance?

Our parents used to say a lot of clichéd sentences and most of us, if not everyone, used to know the next sentence in offering in the times of a tumult. For a bad academic performance, we used to be told that if you study hard you will make a career, and if you spoil your time playing in the fields, you will get nothing in return. Many of us were forbidden to eat curd at night as it is supposedly a cough inducing agent, but that didn’t stop us from secretly relishing on Bhalla-Papri before supper. You attempt to gulp down water just after you ate peanuts and you were sure to be fired a spree of clichéd advices. Those days I thought a cliché to be an avoidable sin in any communication, and I never paid any heed to the repeated advices as I used to believe Science more. I was wrong; its sometimes OK to be over sensitive for your kids once you attain parenthood. Parents stop living for themselves once they step into parenthood; its all about sacrifice which comes in naturally. Many of us kept our noses to the grindstone to keep our parents’ faces glowing with self-assured happiness. And yes, many of us got back on the horse that bucked them even though the parents were always there to share our sorrows and to help us get back on our feet.

It is important to be insightful with the kids. When you see your little daughter arranging to get her doll married, you see a little part of yourself in her. When you see your little son cuddling with you German Shepherd, you get caught in an amazing array of emotions. The little bit of God gets activated in ourselves the day we become parents. Parenthood is beyond descriptions.