{"id":177138,"date":"2021-01-18T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=177138"},"modified":"2021-01-14T08:22:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T08:22:15","slug":"smiles-bewitching-enticing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/smiles-bewitching-enticing\/","title":{"rendered":"Smiles \u2014 Bewitching, Enticing"},"content":{"rendered":"

12 Jan 2021 – <\/em>A smile is a common human facial expression. It can be welcoming; it can be wicked or threatening without any words being spoken. Words depend on the language of the speaker or the listener but a smile needs no words and yet conveys a lot of meaning in whatever situation one is.<\/p>\n

Many of us will agree that the world\u2019s most famous smile is that of Mono Lisa \u2014 a painting by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci<\/em> and is on display in the famous Louvre Museum <\/em>in Paris. Perhaps it is one of the world\u2019s most well known painting and millions or perhaps billions of words have been written about it, since it was painted in early sixteenth century \u2014who is Mona Lisa, what does her enigmatic smile convey and what inspired the painter to create this masterpiece. da Vinci <\/em>himself was captivated by his painting and worked on it for several years before he felt satisfied \u2014 or perhaps in understanding the depth of the bewitching smile of\u00a0Mona Lisa<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Without writing anything more about Mona Lisa \u2014 in any case I would not have anything original to write about it, let me turn to the subject of my essay \u2014 smiles. This expression perhaps looks most beautiful on a baby or a young child. It conveys the feeling that the child is well fed, dry and happy.<\/p>\n

As the child grows in age, the smile also develops and on a young woman, it can again demonstrate several meanings \u2014 of being happy and in love with a young man her age.<\/p>\n

Most of us are troubled by various problems\u00a0\u2014 social, economic, professional and whatever\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0else. But when we overcome a difficult situation, we may smile in relief or perhaps even dance a tango and sing\u2026<\/p>\n

Smile, smile, smile away<\/em>
\nDon\u2019t let the problems sway<\/em>
\nOn you<\/em>
\nKeep them a distance away<\/em>
\nAnd smile all the way<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since the expressions of anger, love, smiles, etc. are universal, there are different ways of expressing these emotions all over the world. In India,\u00a0Lord Ram\u00a0<\/em>is a well known deity of Hindus and there are countless number of stories about him and his faithful wife Sita. Many temples depict his story from birth to his long exile away from his kingdom. The epic Ramayan <\/em><\/strong>also is popular in India on the life of Ram, his wife\u00a0Sita <\/em>and his faithful brother\u00a0Lakshman<\/em>. The woman who was responsible for his exile was\u00a0Manthra<\/em> who worked for one of the wives of Ram\u2019s father Kekai<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0She gave the idea of exile\u00a0\u00a0to\u00a0Kekai <\/em>and when she succeeded, she gave a wicked smile.<\/p>\n

But a most beautiful smile is that of love and beauty. We generally refer to young women as being the epitome of beauty and often give loving names to women that express smiles and satisfaction. Two names of women that occur to me are\u00a0 Muskaan<\/em> \u00a0and Tabassum<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0that are common in Hindi and Urdu languages. These are names also of popular Hindi films.<\/p>\n

World\u2019s Literature has stories of romance, love as well as of broken heart, love. In several cases, the romance started\u00a0casually\u00a0with a beautiful smile.<\/p>\n

In English language,\u00a0Jane Eyre,<\/em>\u00a0Pride and Prejudice, Withering Heights\u00a0<\/em>are popular novels in this genre. In the French language,\u00a0Madam Bovary\u00a0<\/em>by Gustave Flaubert is quite popular.\u00a0Anna Karenina,\u00a0a Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy, is also well known.<\/p>\n

Let me not be carried away by these emotions. Let me just smile and acknowledge the affection shown by the TMS<\/em> Editor\u00a0Antonio C S Rosa\u00a0<\/em>who is gracious enough to accept my essays even if they are not of very good quality.<\/p>\n

Hare Krishna<\/em><\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A smile is a common human facial expression. It can be welcoming; it can be wicked or threatening without any words being spoken. Words depend on the language of the speaker or the listener but a smile needs no words and yet conveys a lot of meaning in whatever situation one is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":70777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}