If it is the first Friday of October, it must be World Smile Day! Not that we need a special day to smile, but it is fitting to give the smile its due. The smiling muscle, zygomaticus, teams up with 43 facial muscles for us to go tee-hee. From the first smile recorded for posterity – the photo of Willy at the National Library of Wales taken in 1853 – to the tight Botoxed grin of a celeb that displays perfect veneers and a marked lack of crow’s feet around the eyes, smiles have had a long journey from half-smiles to fake social ones.
Artist Harvey Ball, an adman from Massachusetts who created the smiley face in 1963 and toiled hard to get a smile day declared, finally got his wish in 1999. Thanks to him, we can annually analyse the mechanics of smiling and the percentage of actual happiness that contributes to what is largely a reflex.
The day babies start to smile back is when we realize they are not miniature aliens, but real human beings. The day we smile at a crush and get none back is when we realize hearts can break. The day we start to smile back at someone who just smiled but who then turns away before our lips get their act together is when we feel like a snob. The day our smile outlasts everyone else’s in the room is when we are declared creepy, especially if we maintain eye contact till the end.
Smiles come in many shapes, from dimpled to beaming, fixed to radiant. Mona Lisa, Cheshire Cat and the Joker are all remembered for vastly different smiles. The Hollywood star on your poster has that sexy lopsided grin. The headmistress’s smile is actually a sneer masquerading as a smile. People smirk, snigger or snicker, and these are all technically smiles. There is a consensus, however, that smiles light up faces and generally benefit the smiler during job interviews and awkward first dates.
In 2012 Hello! magazine declared Kate Middleton was Britain’s best smiler; on the other hand, her sister-in-law, Meghan Markle, is accused of sporting a rictus grin. Smiles are mostly counterproductive unless produced from the heart. A plastic one can advance your cause only that much. In India, heartfelt smiles were the domain of actor Madhuri Dixit for the longest time; this relay race is now, some say, won by Alia Bhatt. Among male actors, Sushant Singh Rajput’s was considered a winning one, which also goes to prove that perfect teeth (his were slightly crooked) are never a prerequisite for the perfect smile.
Smiles are an act of giving; author Maya Angelou had said, ‘If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love.’ And despite the modern tendency to mope around and the artistic value of looking melancholic, smiling as a habit is much recommended. You may be asked to stop smoking or stop drinking, but unless you are at a funeral, smiling is never prohibited.
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