Smile Seller

The Smile Seller

Most of us live in a euphemistic world. We all wish to project our lives, our jobs as more important than they actually are. So, an outlet serving one paneer sabji and hakka noodles would label itself a ‘multicuisine restaurant’. A medical intern would call himself ‘junior doctor’ even though all he does is to collect lab reports and other menial works.

It was my first day of the ‘School Health Services’ campaign. I cursed the government for once again trying to gulp more than it could chew. Sending just one intern and two health workers to assess the health of 1500 students is, if nothing else, atrocity. Actually, a qualified doctor is supposed to go, but then, if there is only one doctor manning an entire health centre alone, he will definitely not be inclined to go to lower rung schools to check students. Cursing the government and the the world in general, I entered a classroom, only to be greeted by what should be expected in a Municipal School’s 8th grade classroom- utter chaos. I banged on my hand on the table, which quivered a little under the forceful impact.

“Anybody with fever, difficulty in seeing, or any other disease?” I shouted my lungs out, while the health workers were busy recording the heights and weights of the kids. Nobody stepped out. Sighing, I stood up and stepped out of the class, only to repeat the exercise in the next class. And the next. By the time I reached the last classroom, my lungs were begging me to stop shouting. Not a single kid stepped out and those who did, only came to me for some mundane complaint. It was an exercise in boredom. As I was stepping out from the hellish experience and gulping down a much needed glass of water, I felt a hand tapping my back. I turned around with an irritated look.

“Yes! What is the problem?” I asked tersely.

“Sir, I am feeling weak,” the kid who tapped my back answered.

“So? Why didn’t you come to me when I came in your class? You think you’re a VIP?” I shouted, a tad unnecessarily, a revelation of hindsight.

“They all would laugh at me sir,” he managed to stammer it out. I noticed a solitary tear escape his right eye. It was then that I realized that this kid was afraid of me. Never having felt that sensation of being feared, I knelt down and patted him on the back and asked, “See, I won’t make fun of you, I won’t scold you. Now tell me what the problem is.”

“Sir, I feel weak. High fever. And I feel shivers at night,” he stammered in broken Gujarati. They were classical symptoms of malaria. I asked him to come to the health centre the next day with either of his parents to get the medication and gave him dietary advice.

“But sir, I won’t be able to come with papa. He cannot leave his work. And ma will not come.”

“Why? Why your mother will not come?”

“Because she can’t.,” saying this, he ran away, leaving me wondering. Upon asking the headmistress, I learnt that his name was Raju and his father sold balloons. I decided to visit his father, just on a whim. In any case, I had missed my date that day and planned to make up with my girlfriend with the help of some good balloons. A little more enquiry directed me to his whereabouts.

It was one of Ahmedabad’s typical evenings. Loud, pollution laced, and yet serene, as if indicating that the madness of the day is done and a new day will dawn soon. I was led by Raju to his father. He was standing with a smile and stick, on which various balloons of different shapes and colors were hung. That was when I noticed something peculiar. All the balloons had a tag on them, with something written. I leaned a little to read it. On each tag, a different note was written.

“Tara nu vaahlu. Tara nu gamtu. Tara ni pasand” I read them aloud, Tara’s beloved, Tara likes, Tara’s choice. I looked at him, befuddled.

“Tara is my wife, sir. Raju’s mother. I name all my balloons after her. She is no more in this world,” the man explained.

“Oh, I am sorry. What is your name?”

“Veerji Makwana. Saaheb, what is wrong with my Raju?”

“Well, nothing. He has malaria. Here are the tablets,” I handed him the Chloroquine tablets which I had taken from the Health Centre’s pharmacy and gave him instructions on how to give them to his son.

“Thank you saaheb. How much do I have to pay you?” he shuffled his pocket. I could hear a few clinks of coins.

“Nothing,” I replied firmly, “but if you want to give me something, give me your best balloon.” Veerji took out a beautiful heart shaped balloon and handed it over to me, “Saaheb, take this. Your girlfriend will be very happy!”

“How do you know I am taking it for my girlfriend?” I asked, surprised.

“I am in the selling smiles for years now. Experience!” he replied smiling. I joined in with a shy smile too, before realizing something strange.

“Selling smiles?” I asked.

“Yes. Whenever people buy my balloons, they smile. For ten rupees, I give them a smile. Now, you tell me, is there a place where we can get a smile so cheap?”

That man, I wondered, could have beaten a management graduate had he been to IIM, I wondered, as I walked away.

I was to be posted there for another month, owing to the school health program. While the state of the state-run schools saddened me, the face of the ‘smile seller’ always brought a smile to my face. It was as if he didn’t sell me any smiles. He gifted them for free. Often my return home would be punctuated by a visit to his stall, buying a couple of balloons and sharing a few jokes. The chasms between our age and wage had dimmed considerably. And the friendship deepened. It seemed as if we were long los brothers, as we now started sharing a cup of chai and biscuits over the evening while sharing experiences of our vastly diverse world. I would often be the silent one, trying to soak in the life that I would never have to live.

“It is difficult, our existence,” he said, one day, “Daily, we have to pay the policemen and the street gundas to protect ourselves from them. And yet, at the end of the day, we live on, hoping for another beautiful day. The smile on my son’s face is all I would ever ask for, should God grant me a wish. He is all that I have, after Tara left. And you saved his life! You are like God to me.”

“Oh come on! All I did was to give him some tablets. Nothing great,” I shrugged nonchalantly, “What happened to your wife?” I ventured, banking on my goodwill. His face stiffened in return. As if it were something he didn’t want to bring up. I never asked about it again. Every man has his secrets. Some want them buried, others put them on Facebook.

It was at the end of yet another taxing day, with school health visits in the morning and helping to run the OPD in the afternoon. The OPD was especially heavy, and by the time I was done, all I wanted was a cup of hot tea and soothing music. But my return journey was marred by something totally unexpected. Curfew! It was as if the whole of Ahmedabad lay dead. I had no idea what was happening, and had no means of getting one either, as the phone networks had been jammed. My senior, the pharmacy staff and me, we totaled five people in the Health centre, who absolutely had been cut off from the world. Just then, my mobile rang. As I picked it up, I heard mom’s voice, laden with anxiety, and fear.

“There have been bomb blasts everywhere in Ahmedabad! And this time, the rascals have targeted all hospitals, especially Government hospitals! Are you safe?”

I was dumbstruck, both at the audacity and the heinousness of the attack. They had attacked places with minimal or abysmal security arrangements, and maximum concentration of targets. Trembling, I relayed the information to others. Everybody was equally shocked, dazed…nay, terrorized. As the initial shock passed, the pharmacist spoke, “Then why are we alive? Why have the terrorists not targeted us?”

“Maybe our health centre is too small to be a target,” I made a feeble attempt to make light of the moment. It was replied with silent glares. I decided it was better to shut up. Nobody spoke a word for the rest of the time. We decided to spend the night in the Health centre itself, inspite of realizing that we could be in for a shock. Or a blast. But at the moment the place seemed safer than anywhere else.

The next day dawned, or rather struck. News of the blast and its causalities were everywhere in the news. Thousands had died, and many more, injured. Amidst all the gloom, as I returned home, I sought ‘the smile seller’. He was nowhere in sight. Shuddering at the thought of his death, I went over to the adjacent shopkeepers to enquire about him. Nobody knew much about him, apart from the fact that he had recently started selling balloons in the locality. He had disappeared a day before. Nobody even knew his name.

“His name is Veerji. Veerji Makwana,” I said.

“Saaheb, that’s my name! It was the first thing he asked when he came here!” I was shocked. Maybe shocked is an understatement. Was the man whom I thought to be my friend, something entirely else? Afraid to build a conclusion based on circumstantial evidence alone, I walked back. As I passed a police station, I had half a mind to go in and report about the balloon man, but decided against it. The little boy inside me still told me to trust him.

The OPD was almost empty the next day. Fearing another attack, nobody had come there to take medicines for cough, cold and fever. Maybe it was better to cough for a day than to die. The MO told me to go home if I wished to. I went straight to the spot where the ‘smile seller’ stood. It was empty. I was about to turn away when the shopkeeper, the real Veerji, called me. As I came, he came close to my ear and said, “Your balloon man is dead.”

“What?” I exclaimed in shock. Life was suddenly dealing me shocks by the dozen.

“Yes. Yesterday he came here, not with his balloons, but on a motorbike, with his son. Asked me to take his son to a safe place. He had a pleading look in his eyes that I will never forget. When I asked the reason, he didn’t say anything but ran away. Just as he was crossing the road, a truck smashed right into him. The truck driver ran away with the truck.”

I had no words. I was as if the wind had been snatched out of my lungs. All I could mumble was a “Thank you” to the shopkeepers and trudged back to my car. As I drove back home, I switched on the radio. The RJ was not in his usual buoyant mood, and for a reason. But one line that he spoke jarred me into attention, “According the Commissioner of Police, all the targets had a balloon man standing nearby, scouting on the place for a month. Efforts are on to find any of those. If you have seen any such person, you can call on this number…”

So, he was a terrorist! But why did he not bomb our Health centre, if he was scouting it? It was then that his words came to me, “You saved his life. You are God to me.”