The Mona Lisa Smile

 “I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. It is the business of little minds to shriek, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct will pursue their principles unto death”- Leonardo da Vinci

It is my routine to open the centre page of the newspaper every morning and look for the Sacred Space, a small rectangular box on the right corner beneath the Editorial. Though this is more by habit than by any reasoned thought, I have derived a sense of security and salubrity from the wise quotes in the Sacred Space. It has always fortified me to face the challenges of the day with an inspired certainty that all will be well with the world. Today’s quote from Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance Italian painter and the creator of the famous Mona Lisa  was timely to infuse additional strength to brace up to the ordeal of starting early without breakfast and standing for hours in the long queue to draw my piddling savings for my immediate daily needs such as bread, salt, sugar and milk.

But this time around, Leonardo’s infusion of hope did not work any magic as the demands of the day outweighed it. Two days of standing in the queue for hours that seemed endless had sapped both  my physical energy and my resoluteness to be the new Casabianca, old and not young. Earlier I had listened to the PM’s address which showed him to be the Knight in the shining armour on a white charger to rid the nation of the black demons exhorting us to stand by him-which metaphorically meant that we the people of India should stand in the serpentine queues and withdraw our own piddling savings. As I listened to the rasping rhetoric of our strong PM, I imagined people feting me, a frail 77 year old woman for standing up for the cause of whitewashing black notes and composing a poem  in my honour: The Indian Casabianca

The woman stood on the uneven road

Whence all but she had fled;

The lights that lit the streets

Shone round her dim and dark .

Yet old and frail she stood

To get her paltry money for her daily bread

A woman of heroic blood,

Proud, though bent double with age.

The bank shutters rolled down

 But she stood and would not move

To honour her PM’s word

She would bear the day’s heat

As also the dark, chilly night

Bravely she put up with her hunger pains

Her parched tongue sealed her lips

She dreamt she saw streaks of white

 Amidst the blackening night

 She closed her eyes and faintly heard

 A voice that whispered:   

              The noblest thing which perished here

 Was this poor, old, faithful heart.

But as luck would have it ,two days back,  I had seen on the TV, hon’ble  PM’s 94 year old mother among the queue-ists , thereof crumbling  my dream of becoming the Indian Casbianca.  That honour was not for me. That poem would not be sung for me. I woke up from my daydream to the nightmarish reality of a good fifty people ahead of me as the wintry evening gave way to the wintry night with its harsh, cold darkness.    

Two days of incessant waiting to take my own hard earned money despite all the government announcements about separate queues for senior citizen and women. I sympathized with the banks’ problem- all bank branches in the colonies are housed in small buildings on small lanes where there is no space for even making a single line queue-what to speak of multiple queues. I knew that if I were somewhere in the top order of the queue, I would get my cash otherwise by the time my turn came I will be one of the cas(h)ualties of the day. Like the old Ancient mariner, I looked at the people and the bank and despaired: Banks, banks everywhere/ Not a note to receive.

 I muttered Leonardo da Vinci’s lines to fortify myself and smile despite the veins on my legs turning blue. I slowly made my way back home as the queue behind me was also thinning. I switched on the TV and listened to the usual verbal fisticuffs with both the opposition and ruling party leaders raising the decibel intensity. Well, those on the TV were lucky people; they did not have to stand in the queue to get their money. Well ensconced in the TV studios( or on their sofas in their comfortable homes) they had  all the energy to unleash a barrage of meaningless words and innuendos. Their acrimony made it difficult for me to keep smiling. The ex PM, a great and well respected economist was abused of having his intellect demonetized and willingly allowed an intellectual descent to meet the level of his brainless party leaders in order to curry their favour. This verbal onslaught  sounded bizarre and outlandish. All those who likened the Government’s ill planned and ill managed scheme  to catch the black dons as Quixotic scheme were mercilessly flayed as anti national, pro black money etc. I had stood five days with physical strain at the bank but I could not stand the total lack of civility, culture and sophistication I witnessed  in my drawing room. The common man and woman with whom I stood for eight hours never once muttered a curse. Their restlessness was not once marred by un-civility.

We all smiled in trouble, we had gathered r strength from the ordeal of standing and grew brave by reflection on what made us Indians so accommodating.  Well, it was the little minds that shrieked, abused, quarreled using un-civil language. I took comfort that I belonged to the aam admi/ aam aurath  whose heart is firm,  whose conscience approves their conduct and who will pursue their principles unto death as Vinci had said. Well, I smiled as Mona Lisa smiled. I am not the only one. I am with billions of Indians with the Mona Lisa smile.