Saturday, August 23, 2008

Anonymous Smiles

The idea of Anonymous Smiles struck on one of my many day-dreaming phases.

The experiment is simple- I aim to gather addresses of people I don't know and send them one of my postcards.

If I happen to come across sketch pens when I am doing nothing, and if the mood seems right, this happens:



Sending a postcard is my version of leaving a message in a bottle in the ocean. How soon (or how leisurely late) the petite yellow card can reach its rightful owner never ceases to amaze me. I feel its potential to spread a moment of joy with colours and words has not been exploited to the maximum...

After playing with the idea for quite sometime now, I am taking the first step to further my postcard sending spree and see if I can spread smiles beyond my circle of acquaintances.

So here's what I have done so far to give my idea a concrete shape:



Now, as you can well see, I have more cards with me than I have addresses. Here's where you can come in the picture. If you know anyone to whom you would like to send one of my postcards, send me the complete postal address at anonymous.smiles@gmail.com

It could be your friend, neighbour, your parents or grandparents. It could be the address of people living in old age homes. It could be anyone whom you wish to send an anonymous smile. Even you, yourself. My interest lies only in seeing that the card is posted at a correct address and when it reaches, it ensures a moment of smile. This exercise will make me feel good about myself and hope its the same for you.

The blog http://anonymoussmiles.blogspot.com/ attempts to answer all the questions that you may now have about this idea. Please visit the blog and let me know your suggestions...

If you have addresses to share, please mail at anonymous.smiles@gmail.com

10 comments:

FifthBeatle said...

This reminds of a guy in America who wrote down his postal address on 1000 one dollar bills and added a line saying anyone who came across one of these bills should send him a postcard saying Hi if they wanted to.

And some of the stuff he got back in postcards was really worth reading about.

Okay, I know it's not the same or anything. But really cool idea. Go for it!

SummerDiary said...

Wow! I must register fast, I have an addrress on my mind :)

Anonymous Smiles said...

Arnold-- Yes.. I also read about him.. perhaps in Reader's Digest? not sure.. there was also one man from Mumbai, Vasant Kalbag, who started this e-zine called Kindness Unlimited.. that was also a very nice thing...
But thanks for giving this idea an acknowledgement of novelty! :D Send across some postal addresses if you have any...

Jack-- Thanks! You are the first one to send me a postal address. Will let you know as soon as I drop the card in the box...

UPDATES--- One postal address received. Also, one email address!

Anonymous said...

lovely idea..:)

hey gauri, thank you for blogrolling me. I am sorry that I am not quite regular on my blog updating it or commenting. But will surely make up for all that soon.


-Anu

dharmabum said...

what a simple, and beautiful thought. god bless you, gauriji. :)

Dileep said...

hmm good idea :)

Indian Home Maker said...

Reminds me of 'Random Acts of kindness', I wonder if you have heard about it...you just show kindness to a total stranger, like this guy who stopped his car with the sweetest, kindest smile I have ever seen, and let me back my car out of parking, on a crowded Ambedkar Road...a few years ago and I was a nervous new driver, the traffic behind him honked like traffic does, he just smiled kindly and let me back (without having a heart attack) In return I am patient with anybody who needs some patience on our roads :)
Go for it, anything that creates a smile, is worth it.

Gauri Gharpure said...

Anu, Dharma, Dileep, IHM,

Thanks.. :)

It would be a great help if you tell your friends about Anonymous Smiles. You may either blogroll the link to the other blog (anonymoussmiles.blogspo.com) Also, you could put up the cheery logo I have made on your blog to support the idea and help me get addresses.

Copy the html code given below:

[a href="http://anonymoussmiles.blogspot.com"][img alt="Anonymous Smiles" width="132" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kwXHd-w3Eus/SLLiCn5L5oI/AAAAAAAAARw/2rCYz_Hv4S4/s400/LOGO5.jpg" height="157"/][/a]

[a href="http://anonymoussmiles.blogspot.com/"]Click to know more[/a]

Replace [ with < and ] with > in the above code before publishing.
I hope this is not asking much! :)

dharmabum said...

quite a bit, considering the changing [ to < bit, specially if ur asking us bums :P

but its done - go see :)

Joe Pinto said...

Hi Gauri -- I hope this idea spreads for all it's worth. - Joe Pinto.