The Story of a Smile
His face, according to me, was his biggest asset..…it made the other person speaking to him, smile. With four top incisors deciding to grow unhindered and therefore protruding well beyond the boundary of his mouth, his upper lips always seemed to be stretched, giving the sudden appearance of a smiling face. His face was a perfect ellipse, the way an egg would look like if it managed to grow some hair on its top because of a genetic disorder. When he came barging into the room with a bewildered, lost in transit look on his face, one couldn’t help looking up and taking note of him.
“Sir, Click for Jesus Christ’s Saturday! I bought for everyone sir. Please eat!” So saying he would go around office distributing slices of cake to everyone present. What he meant to convey was that he had brought cake for everyone to eat on Christmas Eve. His dentures, unfortunately twisted the words making them an object of some mirth and laughter at the office. The serious atmosphere inside our office would at once turn into an atmosphere of fun and laughter. Gerald, that’s what he claimed was what the fathers of the church near his home had named him, had a peculiar accent while speaking. It was made even more difficult to comprehend because of his protruding teeth. As a result most of the times when he spoke, a few alphabets got left out, which therefore gave a completely different meaning to the sentence. Sometimes the words themselves jumbled up with one another making it difficult for the other person to comprehend what he meant to convey. This became the butt of joke of the people, who chose the occasion to lighten their worries and tensions with a few jokes and digs at the expense of poor Gerald.
“So you have decided to click photograph with the Lord Himself on his birthday?!!” someone would ask him with an air of mock seriousness. Others would take up the cue from there and carry on.
“For photographing Lord Christ, you need to go to heaven. Don’t tell me you are ready to go to heaven so soon?”
Yet others would add on to this, “I hope this cake is not the vehicle to take all of us to heaven?” The discussion would continue on and on with everyone leaving aside their work to catch a few minutes of mirth and laughter in their otherwise stressful office life!
To some extent, we all looked forward to the presence of Gerald in our office. He was one of the three peons, who was available at our beck and call for odd jobs of photocopying, moving the papers from one desk to another and even give us our daily doses of the cup o’ cheer-Tea. He was not very efficient in his job and to some extent could even be labeled as sloppy. However, what endeared him to everyone, especially to me, was the morning cup of coffee that he ensured was always available the moment I took my seat at the desk and his ability to lighten the tense office atmosphere by providing people with the opportunity to engage in some harmless fun. He would call our boss, Mr. Nerulkar, Neru-kaa sahib, which in Bengali, meant a bald crow, inciting peals of laughter from us. One day he suddenly barged into the office and started to excitedly tell me that the company situated on the 15th floor of our building had decorated their office with balloons. The way the word balloon was pronounced, gave the impression that he meant “Begun”, which is a Bengali word for Brinjal! Those present in the office immediately pounced on this word to derive our quota of laughter for the moment! Often when we would ask him to get us our lunch from the many shops on the streets of Calcutta, he would forget and mix the order of one person with another. Thus someone who had ordered an egg omlette plus Chowmein would find a plain vegetarian chowmein and a fruit salad landing on his desk. Imagine the plight of the vegetarian who had ordered a pure vegetarian fruit salad, when he finds an egg omlette landing up on his table! While Gerald would stand with the bewildered expression on his face and try to understand what has gone wrong, the chaos and the shouting would provide fillip for the others to join in the fun and all the tensions of the day would be temporarily forgotten
It’s been ten years now since I resigned from my old company and decided to work in a small trading organization. The new company has a small office space with ten people managing the work of the entire company. Days of cost cutting and business process out-sourcing has led to trimmer and smaller work-force in most offices across the world. The jobs of the office peons have been replaced by the computers, electronic mails, e-faxes, and automatic coffee & tea vending machines. A paperless office is very much the order of the day. The competitive world doesn’t forgive losers and therefore everyone seems to be on the edge at all times. Employees have become akin to robots. I seem to be developing wrinkles on my face faster than I should have, for I can no longer exercise the muscles of my face with a smile now and then. Gerald is today, just a reminder of the good old days.
Gerald has long been consigned to my memory, only to provide a spark of amusement whenever I try to take a walk down the memory lane.
“Sir, Click for Jesus Christ’s Saturday! I bought for everyone sir. Please eat!” So saying he would go around office distributing slices of cake to everyone present. What he meant to convey was that he had brought cake for everyone to eat on Christmas Eve. His dentures, unfortunately twisted the words making them an object of some mirth and laughter at the office. The serious atmosphere inside our office would at once turn into an atmosphere of fun and laughter. Gerald, that’s what he claimed was what the fathers of the church near his home had named him, had a peculiar accent while speaking. It was made even more difficult to comprehend because of his protruding teeth. As a result most of the times when he spoke, a few alphabets got left out, which therefore gave a completely different meaning to the sentence. Sometimes the words themselves jumbled up with one another making it difficult for the other person to comprehend what he meant to convey. This became the butt of joke of the people, who chose the occasion to lighten their worries and tensions with a few jokes and digs at the expense of poor Gerald.
“So you have decided to click photograph with the Lord Himself on his birthday?!!” someone would ask him with an air of mock seriousness. Others would take up the cue from there and carry on.
“For photographing Lord Christ, you need to go to heaven. Don’t tell me you are ready to go to heaven so soon?”
Yet others would add on to this, “I hope this cake is not the vehicle to take all of us to heaven?” The discussion would continue on and on with everyone leaving aside their work to catch a few minutes of mirth and laughter in their otherwise stressful office life!
To some extent, we all looked forward to the presence of Gerald in our office. He was one of the three peons, who was available at our beck and call for odd jobs of photocopying, moving the papers from one desk to another and even give us our daily doses of the cup o’ cheer-Tea. He was not very efficient in his job and to some extent could even be labeled as sloppy. However, what endeared him to everyone, especially to me, was the morning cup of coffee that he ensured was always available the moment I took my seat at the desk and his ability to lighten the tense office atmosphere by providing people with the opportunity to engage in some harmless fun. He would call our boss, Mr. Nerulkar, Neru-kaa sahib, which in Bengali, meant a bald crow, inciting peals of laughter from us. One day he suddenly barged into the office and started to excitedly tell me that the company situated on the 15th floor of our building had decorated their office with balloons. The way the word balloon was pronounced, gave the impression that he meant “Begun”, which is a Bengali word for Brinjal! Those present in the office immediately pounced on this word to derive our quota of laughter for the moment! Often when we would ask him to get us our lunch from the many shops on the streets of Calcutta, he would forget and mix the order of one person with another. Thus someone who had ordered an egg omlette plus Chowmein would find a plain vegetarian chowmein and a fruit salad landing on his desk. Imagine the plight of the vegetarian who had ordered a pure vegetarian fruit salad, when he finds an egg omlette landing up on his table! While Gerald would stand with the bewildered expression on his face and try to understand what has gone wrong, the chaos and the shouting would provide fillip for the others to join in the fun and all the tensions of the day would be temporarily forgotten
It’s been ten years now since I resigned from my old company and decided to work in a small trading organization. The new company has a small office space with ten people managing the work of the entire company. Days of cost cutting and business process out-sourcing has led to trimmer and smaller work-force in most offices across the world. The jobs of the office peons have been replaced by the computers, electronic mails, e-faxes, and automatic coffee & tea vending machines. A paperless office is very much the order of the day. The competitive world doesn’t forgive losers and therefore everyone seems to be on the edge at all times. Employees have become akin to robots. I seem to be developing wrinkles on my face faster than I should have, for I can no longer exercise the muscles of my face with a smile now and then. Gerald is today, just a reminder of the good old days.
Gerald has long been consigned to my memory, only to provide a spark of amusement whenever I try to take a walk down the memory lane.
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