Blue or Black

          This anecdote is from 2019, around this time of October-November. On Second October last year, I had got the first phone of my life, a second-hand Galaxy A6, combined with a new SIM card. There was that air of novelty about my own mobile number, my own WhatsApp, et cetera.

          And so there was also this little fascination about setting up a profile picture that was charming, reflective of my personality, and also professional at the same time. My choice had already been made.

          Around the beginning of winters last year, I had got an opportunity to present a small speech on a local television channel. When it was premiered in the respective program, I fondly took screenshots of my performance. One of those included a photo in which I was smiling, with my blue-turbaned head held slightly high, something I had wanted.

          Now, around this same time, there had been a Model UN at my school, in which I had got a job in the “International Press” as a journalist. Donned in a black turban, a black hoodie, when I was about to leave for school for Day one of MUN, my father had got a picture of mine clicked (it was a new dress).

          Anyhow, when it came to set my profile picture, I took the first picture and posted it. Papa wasn’t too pleased with it, least with that photo. Instead, he said, he would have liked if my choice had been the second photo. Ironically, that second photo was something I was not very impressed with. My face looked in that photo something else, and the overall personality, for me, wasn’t too attractive. Therefore, a stubborn me kept holding my stand and didn’t change that picture.

          That evening, mother called me to kitchen, saying she wanted to talk about something. When I reached, I found her baking rotis. She was smiling wisely. No preambles, no lectures, she quietly called me nearer and said, with that smile intact:

          ‘When a small act of yours that doesn’t cause much difference to you, gives happiness to others in some way, you should have no reason not to do it.’

          It was a big blow, that one sentence, and it kept me thinking for a long time. Yes, surely, what profile photo I set would never make much difference; but if my act of changing the photo with blue turban to the photo with black turban gave happiness to someone, I should do it immediately.

          I came back from the kitchen, picked up the phone, changed the picture and showed it to papa, beaming. He smiled back too.

          I won a smile that day.