Learn to Smile

 A geranium needs just a few beams of the early morning sun to spread its smile inside a dispirited room. A sunflower, on the other hand, has to dare for a full stare into the sun’s fiery orbs to grin, smile, laugh or whatever these flowers have the nomenclature for this expression. The night jasmine loves spooky midnight dark to chuckle mischievously perhaps. The sadabahar is unpretentious altogether, no nakhras at all. It is happy to smile all across the year at all places ranging from flower pots to weedy uncemented brick paved  yards to even dung heaps. No wonder, the one smiles the best, who does it with least conditions. This smiling spirit gives it the name that translates to ‘ever in bloom’. A garden rose surely is coquettish and has lots of nakhras. It has to pampered with cuddlish care. One has to get many a prickly pinches in managing a smile on the garden rose. But then it compensates very well with its beauty and fragrance. The hibiscus stands as a pretty good smiling lady if you manage her well through her slippery adolescence, given her susceptibility to get in the company of pests and aphids who love her soft soots. Be with her through this naughty time, she then becomes a big-hearted beauty having broad dimpled smiles. The butterflies have a whole lot of petalous boulevard to give rest to their wings on her big petals. The bougainvillea hardly throws any tantrums. It has strong genes for many clusters of smiles. Even the traffic exhausts don’t intimidate it once it gets it smiley momentum. The marigold is the sweet nice eater of nutrients for it eats well to become a dark green fatty boy before it shows its cherubic grin. Mind you, flowers aren’t all about only the velvety soft colorful landing sites for the butterflies, colors for our eyes and scent for our nostrils. Aconitum, the devil’s helmet, kills and viciously chuckles. Nerium oleander is the scented killer. Castor oil blooms can definitely castrate anyone’s pride. Sum and summary is that all of us are good and bad in our funny, quirky ways. We the eccentric pop-ups have an idiosyncratic blend of strengths, weaknesses, negatives and positives, smiles and tears. Blend well with your surroundings. Being joyful is a habit. We can regularly remind ourselves to feel happy on principle. Make joy a hobby, a kind of propensity through practice. Start with flowers. See, how happy they seem all the time.