It is amusing how there is no predictable moment when life brings you a little surprise not a grand one, not a miracle, just a usual discussion which changes all your mood. It may happen during the time you are walking down the street, waiting to take the bus, or waiting in line to get your cup of coffee. Some person who has never met you speaks kindly, or some one whom you hardly know begins to talk to you and the day becomes a bit lighter. Small words are strange things with such power of silence.
I also recall this morning when everything was not right. I was hardly sleepless, my head was noisy, and even the sun was too bright. I took out to get breakfast and the main reason was that I did not want to sit alone in my room. As I waited to have my order, the older man who was seated beside me smiled and told me, you look tired son. Long night?" I laughed creakily, not intending people like anyone to pay attention. We began to exchange a little chatter, with nothing special more than a chat about work, good weather, and life. but his even voice, the manner in which he talked of slowing down and loving mornings, caused me to stop. Assuming a break, he said, The world will not cease. That one line stuck with me.
The thing is we do not even know how many things people have in them stories, lessons, jokes, and even suffering, and how a few sentences of the right person may change something in us. It is not what they are saying sometimes but the way they get you to perceive them. Perhaps, that is what we need deep inside, to be observed, even to someone whom we are not acquainted with.
I believe that small talk is a special experience since it is the opposite of a repetition. Most of our days we are in a rush running, scrolling, not looking at anyone because we are thinking about what to do next. However, when somebody talks to us unexpectedly, that reminds us and brings us to the here and now. It is a wake-up to us that we are not invisible, that there is still time to enjoy little moments in life, little moments that are real.
It is also liberating to talk to a person that you will never see again. You need not act, or at all fear what they will think. You may be sincere, even weak. Other times, friends are even worse listeners than strangers as there is no history and no expectations, just two lives slide past each other in a couple of minutes.
I have talked to people and changed the mood of my entire day. An amiable rickshaw puller who used to joke at the traffic and when I was late, I laughed loudly at his jokes. One of the cashiers who saw my favorite band on my t-shirt and informed me that she liked the same songs. One day, a small child, in a park, who gave me his candy without asking whether I liked superheroes. No one was aware of what I was going through on that particular day, yet they made it easier.
Perhaps it is a reminder that there must not always be a reason to connect. We believe in large scale movements, which are the most important, but other times it is a smile, a word of encouragement, a laugh with a person who we hardly know and still remember the words we shared. Those moments are able to dissolve the stresses, alleviate loneliness or just make us remember that there is some kindness out there.
Therefore, next time when someone walking like him does it and it is a random conversation, do not hurry. Listen, respond, be there. I do not know, they may have to speak, it is possible they had to hear something and you did not even notice. Life is in the subtle manner it provides us with what we require least.
And who knows? Such a small share may not only transform your day. It may remain with you long after the taking of the moment, as a bit of evidence that connection is still one of the easiest and strongest things that we possess.
