The Smile That Went Around the Colony

Have you ever wondered where a smile goes after you give it away?

Khushi wondered exactly that, one Monday morning at the milk booth of Chandan Colony. She was seventh in line, holding her steel can, when she noticed the man in front of her patting his pockets. Once. Twice. Three times. His face grew longer with every pat.

“I’ve forgotten my wallet,” he murmured to the milkman. “I’ll have to come back.”

Khushi looked at the two-rupee coins in her palm — her ice-lolly money, saved all week. Here was the moment. She could stay quiet and keep her coins warm in her fist. Or she could do the thing that made her heart go ting, like a cycle bell.

“Uncle,” she said, holding out the coins, “you can return them tomorrow. Milk shouldn’t wait. Babies get grumpy.”

The man laughed — a surprised, morning-fresh laugh — and thanked her twice. And that, Khushi thought, was that.

But it wasn’t.

Because sitting on the boundary wall nearby, swinging his legs and noticing everything the way he always did, was Anish — Khushi’s big brother, two years older and about a hundred words quieter. Anish rarely said much. But he had quietly watched his little sister hand over her lolly money, and now he watched the milk-booth uncle walk home smiling — and then, Anish nearly fell off the wall — the uncle stopped to help Sharma Aunty carry her heavy sabzi bags up the stairs.

Interesting, thought Anish, and he followed the smile like a detective follows a clue.

Sharma Aunty, arms free now, gave the newspaper boy two guavas “for the road.” The newspaper boy, chewing happily, spotted the watchman’s little daughter crying under the gulmohar tree, her kite snagged in the branches — and cycled back with a long stick to free it. The girl ran off laughing, kite in hand…

…toward the park, where the rest of the Goodness Gang had gathered by four o’clock.

Aarav, the eldest at twelve, sat with his wonder-notebook open, sketching the courtyard the way he sketches everything. Tara, nine and full of questions, was on her knees with her magnifying glass, gravely counting pigeons. And Khushi sat on the swing, a little glum — she’d watched the ice-lolly cart tinkle past without her. No coins, no lolly. Being kind, she was learning, sometimes has a price you feel in the afternoon.

That’s when the watchman’s daughter skipped up and pressed something into her hand. An orange ice lolly, unwrapped at the top.

“Papa bought two,” the girl beamed. “You looked like you needed the second one. And look — my kite came back!”

Khushi stared at the lolly, then at the sky, then at Anish, who arrived just then, out of breath from following smiles all day.

Anish could go a whole morning without a full sentence. But a chain was a kind of puzzle, and puzzles unlocked him. “You won’t believe where your smile went,” he said — and he told the whole Gang the journey, booth to stairs to guavas to kite to lolly, counting each stop on his fingers like stations on a railway line.

“Let’s look at it from the other side,” said Aarav slowly. “You didn’t lose two rupees, Khushi. You planted them.”

“Acha, one more question—” Tara shot up, magnifying glass forgotten. “If it came all the way back to Khushi… where is it going now?”

And a new voice, warm as old brass, answered from beside the neem tree: “That, little detective, is the best question of all.” A pair of orange sneakers appeared first — then the rest of him. The Genie, twinkling. “The wish is easy,” he said. “The choice is the magic.”

Khushi licked her lolly slowly. “So I gave away two rupees,” she said, “and the colony gave me back a whole adventure.”

“The superpower of making good choices,” Anish said quietly, with a shrug. “It works even when you’re not looking.”

Some people in Chandan Colony say the children there carry a quiet superpower — you can’t see it, but you can always see what it does. They call themselves the Goodness Gang, and anyone who tries their best to make good choices every day is already a member: a Kindness Champion. Perhaps you are one and never knew it.

Moral of the Story: A kindness given away is never gone — it’s just travelling.

Now we’re wondering, fellow voyager:

• Where do you think Khushi’s smile travelled after the ice lolly? The story doesn’t end where the page does.
• Has a kindness ever come back to you from a completely unexpected direction?

“Guided by Goodness, the world shines bright!”

— Virtue Voyager

GROWN-UP NOTE

For the grown-up by your side: When did a kindness you gave come back to you — perhaps years later, perhaps changed beyond recognition? Tell your child that story tonight; children remember the true ones longest.