Saturday, October 12, 2013

There's Smileage in it

Travelling back to Doha filled me up with nostalgia. The trip must have been five years back now or then about a year and a bit since I quit my job at the Qatar Airways to move to Dubai. Getting myself comfortable in-flight I was super excited at the prospects of being back to the city which was home for over 2 years. I was also looking forward to meeting my cousins and their lovely daughter. So you can understand my disappointment when I was told at the immigration that I cannot enter the country as they had just implemented a rule which prohibits re-entry for 2 years for anyone who had cancelled their visas.

To this date I cannot figure out why anyone would have such a rule, but that is not the story. Walking into the immigration with my husband who did not have any problem getting in, I was devastated to hear that I need to fly back to Dubai and was an absolute bummer for both of us. We asked if we could meet someone more senior to reason it out. After a short wait when the manager arrived, I was fuming with anger and did not even bother to extend slightest of courtesy or to listen to what he had to say. I just lost my cool as any normal person would (?).

The answer was NO. As I was on the verge of tears, the ever so polite hubby pitched in and requested them to try one last time if possible by speaking to their supervisor. One of the biggest gift that god has bestowed him with is a calm head. And the rest was magic


Voila! All it took was his gentle words and a sweet smile, my passport was stamped. That very instant I realised my mistake and I felt so ashamed of myself, plus got an earful I got from the hubby. I could have put down plenty of reasons for my arrogant behaviour, but I didn’t once think that how difficult a job is especially when you are meeting people like me almost every day or once every hour.

 That was a big lesson for me and from then on, I have practised the art of smiling and being polite with people I meet, be it a cashier, the cleaning boy, my neighbours, taxi drivers and the list will go on. I am sure many people would even thought of me as a mad lady just randomly smiling at them.

Don’t get me wrong I haven’t turned to a saint by any stretch of imagination and still lose my cool occasionally but have reformed myself a great deal along with the improved odds of getting things done. This helps me get freshest of veggies, even if they are not on the shelf, free coffee, free clean-up of stained car seats, discounts and extra special pedicure.

 Thinking about it, I have always seen my mum practice it and my mum-in-law who retired as head of nurse, talking of empathy, putting ourselves in other’s situation but that night I forgot all that since I was upset. It took me a proverbial slap on the face to recognise that.


I am sure we all have learnt a very popular phrase – Smile and the world smiles with you, weep and you weep alone! Remember it’s not that the people are bad, sometimes the situations are. A smile can even sometimes make the impossible, possible!

14 comments:

  1. Smile and the world smiles at you. I read a story in Facebook about that today.
    Two dogs come out of a room. One is wagging his tail happily and the other is growling.
    When she went in the room, she saw it was full of mirrors. The dog who looked happy saw a dog wagging his tail so he came out happily, whereas the other dog saw growling dogs inside so he came out growling.
    It all depends upon us what we want to make out of our life.
    Nice one.

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    1. What a beautiful story Krishna .. thank you for sharing .. :D

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  2. Its good. U two make for a great couple wherein one complements the other. Even i tend to lose my temper easily whenever i come across injustice in any form. Your post is a lesson i will try to remember

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    1. Yes ritesh we get to learn a lot from each other... fact is my hubby has taught me to be more calm..

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  3. I agree! I like the 'smileage'! Sure takes us places!
    Even I do a lot of smiling! Some people think I'm crazy! The rest miss my smile when I'm not around (coz when I'm then I'm always smiling!!!) :) :)
    Keep smiling!

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    1. Aaww that's so nice anita ... you too keep smiling :)

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  4. A smile does make a lot of difference. A cool head enhances that difference.

    As someone said, "a drop of honey gathers more butterlfies than a barrel of vinegar." :)

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    1. I learnt my lesson in a tough situation but I am glad I did .. thanks for stopping by

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  5. Its great and the way this post summarizes the concept of smile, Awesome!! ... Lots of 'smiles' to you (: (:

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  6. Keep Calm...rest everything follows... :)
    GOD bless u both... :)

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  7. And your profile snap shows such a beautiful smile. Keep smiling. Don't worry about people calling you mad. They probably call me that too and I hate it secretly when someone does not return my stupid grin at times. I let it go thinking, they just don't get the humor or they have lost their slice of positivity :)

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