"For you, Madam."

It's funny how the smallest things in life can bring the widest of grins on your face. Being a Sunday, I was just getting back home after a long walk to the supermarket, lugging my groceries, breathing in the poisonous fumes from the vehicles which sped past on the road, when a flower stall across the street caught my eye. Immediately I cheered up, remembering that I had managed to save up a few rupees (which is a big thing considering that it is the 4th last day of the month!) which I could spare to buy a few flowers to brighten up my apartment.

I walked upto the flower stall and selected a few flowers and asked the boy to wrap them up in newspaper for me. Being the hard-core Indian that I am, I managed to bargain with him and bring the price down by 10 rupees. Not much, but a personal victory nonetheless. Content with myself and looking forward to getting home and putting the flowers in bottles around the house, I quickly paid him and left. A couple of seconds later I heard the boy call out to me and I turned back only to see him come up to me and hand me a pretty yellow flower with a smile on his face. Surprised, I counted my flowers and told him that I had all the flowers that I had paid for. He looked at me, smile in place, and said, "for you madam".

The grin that spread across my face still remains. I thanked him, gave him a huge toothy smile and walked back home with a skip in my step, practically! A stranger, a very simple gesture and yet, it was all I needed to brighten up my entire day or maybe even the entire week! Made me realise that even if we made just one small such gesture towards a stranger in a day, maybe we wouldn't be able to change the world but we would be able to make a difference. No matter how many hardships one has to face in life, if we have a reason to smile, the burden does actually become easier to bear and small gestures, like helping a kid cross the road or giving up your seat in the bus to somebody who needs it more, can make a difference, small in respect to the world, but huge in respect to that one person whose burden you helped lighten.