HOW TO LAUGH AND SMILE

HOW TO LAUGH AND SMILE

My brief paraphrase of the poem "Once Upon A Time" by Gabriel Okara, included in Chinar (an anthology of English prose and poems prepared and published by FOUNDATION/Cambridge University Press India, adopted by Assam Higher Secondary Education Council as a textbook in English for HS Class XI):

ONCE UPON A TIME

Once upon a time,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes;

but now they don't.

'Feel at home,' 'Come again,' they say,

and when I come again and feel at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice -

for then I find the doors shut on me.

I have learned to wear many faces like dresses -

home face, office face, street face, host face, cocktail face [a face which you show to the people at a party], with all their conforming [matching] smiles,

like a fixed portrait smile.

I have also learnt to say 'Goodbye'

when I mean 'Good-riddance'

[said when an unwanted person has gone];

to say 'Glad to meet you'

without being glad,

And to say 'It's been nice talking to you,'

after being bored.

But believe me,

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you [You].

Most of all, I want to relearn how to laugh,

for my laugh in the mirror

shows only my teeth like a snake's bare fangs! [illustration on page 21 of the book]

So show me how to laugh;***

show me how I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time [in heaven?]

when I was like you [You].

*** [Perhaps you could join a laughing club/a laughter club]

Kishalay Sinha [G]