India’s Resting Grumpy Face: Is it the Weather or Falling Rupee?

I tried smiling at complete strangers on the street and this is what happened...

Have you ever tried smiling at strangers on the street?

(Photo Courtesy: The Quint/Erum Gour)

TL;DR: Back here, we smile... with caution.

Have you ever tried smiling at a stranger on the street?

They will look at you like you’re a drug-addled, jolly-japing baby monkey.

Oh! Did I mention? This is an Indian street we’re talking of. Chock-a-block with slick peddlers, deafening traffic, determined loiterers, feisty shopkeepers, and preoccupied pedestrians. With beads of sweat gracefully adorning nose tips and foreheads.

(GIF: Giphy) 

If you can, against your better judgment, muster the goodwill to smile at a stranger on a street such as the one described above, you will have gained my admiration and lost the will to do so ever again.

The suspicious looks, riddled with cynicism and mistrust, will snatch away a comfortable sense of belonging from you in the blink of an eye.

I had once dared to smile at an unsuspecting boy on a sunny day. The street was quite a cheery one too, not too bogged down by the weariness of the daily grind. That didn’t help.

Our eyes met and I cracked a big smile, filled with the milk of human kindness. He squirmed in the most outlandish manner possible and raised his eyebrows so high that they disappeared into his fringe after a certain point.

After this, on account of the woefully skewed social dynamic foisted between a boy and a girl, in their 20s, he turned beetroot-red, swerved to the right, and disappeared around the corner.

(GIF: Giphy)

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I didn’t give up.

With a heavy heart, I tried again the next week. This time I steered clear of boys my age. It was a Monday and the street was filled with the usual suspects. I decided to not pick pedestrians who looked super-busy. They might just flip in a manner far worse than the boy.

(GIF: Giphy)

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There was an old lady with a stern, yet sincere, look on her face, pottering about the side-walk with a jute bag in hand. I was headed that way, so it didn’t seem like a big deal. Boy, was I wrong!

My smile made her stop in her tracks. She looked frantically to her left, then to her right, as if prompting passers-by for help. I felt like a burglar who had been caught red-handed.

She then started wagging her finger at me, quite vehemently, mouthing words that seemed... rude. I couldn’t tell. There was no sound coming out of her. My ‘good-natured smile’ had rendered her mute.

(GIF: Giphy)

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That was my last and final attempt at Western civility. I decided to let go of perfunctory smiles and embrace the resting grumpy face that seems like the default expression around me.

(GIF: Giphy)

Elevators, streets, parties, college corridors — it is difficult to come by a smile unless you know the person. Even then, we are a bit tight-fisted while baring our thirty-two. I wonder if the weather is getting to us. Or maybe the rupee hitting an all-time low?

I am quite unsure.

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My theory is that we don’t really care for wayward smiles and happy nods. Our smiles are meted out with an exclusivity that is stripped of the very pretense that social etiquette is premised on.

We afford ourselves excessive niceties only when it is genuine, I guess? And on WhatsApp. I have had enough enthusiastic ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Good Night’ forwards.

(Photo Courtesy: Altered by The Quint/Priyanka Bansal)

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Indians don’t like smiling much. We love laughing. We laugh heartily and loudly, sometimes even at the cost of quiet classrooms, office areas, and restaurants. But that is okay; it is good therapy, they say.

As long as we’re laughing away our worries. And laughing with, rather than at... others.

This profound logic helps me sleep at night.

Bottom Line: Indians aren’t smiling. Is the falling rupee a cause?

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(The above is a part of TLDR (Too Long. Didn't Read), a weekly blog that aims to crunch things down for you. I will give you the long and short of most things that need to be taken extremely seriously like your bookshelf, beer, existential dread, aimless conversations, rainy days and bubble-wrap. I promise to cater to all readers, but I brazenly harbour a soft-spot for skimmers, bathroom-readers and infinite scrollers. Now, let's bring the written word back!

P.S: Follow me @medhac1)