Happy Sunday

Ever watched as the traffic goes by at a crossing? How many smiles do you see? Especially when it’s raining as well. Some crazy people this Sunday decided to bring smiles to the faces on a busy traffic signal in Pune.

Last Sunday, 26 friends between 2 to 65 years of age came out with smiles, energy and posters asking people to – smile; spreading messages of love, beautiful life and greeting everyone Happy Sunday! Some in bright raincoat, some with umbrellas and most just like that. And it’s not just the happy posters for people on the run… There is also hot tea served with love, urging one to stop, take a moment, enjoy a cup of hot tea, and engage in a little conversation with this crazy group before moving on…

Little connections started happening…

One cute little girl (a.k.a. Sheetal Ben) comes out and holds her umbrella for people on 2-wheelers stopped at the signal. The conversation that follows goes like this:

Guy on Scooter: On which all signals in Pune do you do this (offer cover from rain!) ?

Girl with umbrella: just this, just today we felt like doing something different

Guy on Scooter: is this organised by a school? Which class are you in?

Girl with umbrella: no no.. Just a group of friends. I am not a student… I am a teacher!

Guy on Scooter: Oh really! What do you teach?

Girl with umbrella: I teach computers…

Guy on Scooter: Ah! I am in the education department… we need computer teachers. Do come to the department…

And the signal turns green! A couple on another bike sees this group waving hands, shouting greetings and hugging people. They take a U-turn, come back just to know them better and be part of it for a few seconds 🙂 Another group of 4 friends passing by joined in the fun!

The first hug went to the traffic policeman who stands there every day, come rain or sun. One biker stopped just for his hug and then went on. A bunch of girls came for a  group hug! Some thought they weren’t crazy enough for the hug yet they still smiled! One visually challenged uncle came to know about this bunch of youngsters going crazy on a signal and he actually walked to us and asked for his tea!

Happy Sunday became the greeting for the day… Before we knew 60 cups of tea were over and so was an hour… We don’t know how people took it. We know they smiled. We know we had not smiled so much in just an hour before. We overcame our own inhibitions of how our neighborhood will respond to our craziness. Will they stop and drink tea? Will they have time to talk?

Sometimes reaching out is all we need to do to bring happiness and smiles. We didn’t do more than holding out posters and smiling and we made so many friends… who knows when people reached their destination they might have just hugged the person they met or smiled at the security guard of the building or tipped the waiter a little more because of the good mood?

Who knows how these little acts rippled out…