Little Things...

Long walks in the park with no one in particular but herself and her music had now become her routine. Sometimes, she used to lay down with her back against the cool grass and the wind would play with her hair and she would do nothing but look at the stars. It was impossible for her to answer the question shot at her many a times, "What is the deal with you and stars?" and although science had been her major in college, she refused to accept that something so beautiful is just another 'celestial object' as they call it.

So like any other day, she was lying on the grass doing her own thing when her 'pass-a-smile' friend came and lay down next to her. 'Pass-a-smile' friend was what she used to call him because she didn't know his name or him for that matter. Everyday when she entered the park, before going back to doing nothing, her eyes would search for that familiar smile of his and that was the extent of their conversation. However, that cute smile from a stranger would make her forget everything for a while. 

"Why do you look at the stars every single night? I can see that it makes you happy in some strange sort of way, but I was just wondering if there is some particular reason", the words collided with her eardrums and her brain processed the question that had just been voiced by a person who doesn't even have a name for her till now. "Well, everyone has something that makes them happy for no other reason but the sheer fact that it does. So, what is it that makes your heart do a lil dance?", a question for an answer seemed nice to her. He said nothing for a while so she figured that he might be formulating something poetic but she had definitely not expected "Little things". "No kidding!! that's the same thing as mine", she exclaimed with a gleam in her eye. He turned his head to face her, got up on his elbow and rested his head on his palm. She however did no such thing to change her line of sight. "I am waiting", the voice gave her a tiny nudge. She was contemplating a bit, waiting for her brain and her heart to decide if she wanted to share her little things with him and when the two gave a green light she picked off, "For me, happiness isn't just one little thing, it is millions of them; like the time your favorite person agrees to come to that movie with you not because he likes it but because you insisted or when you get home and talk to your friend about the shade of nail paint from the fault in our stars or when she calls you muffin and your lips automatically form a curvy smile or teasing the silly person in your life about how he can't scold and laughing when he tries to or when your brother asks you if you want to go someplace nice to eat or when your mom is happy to see that you finished your entire lunch or having pani puri with your sister and the list goes on.."

"Don't you think all these little things of yours are a teeny bit overrated??", he searched her eyes with a questioning look.
"Oh!! I believe that people have underrated happiness since the very beginning. If only we would invest more time in ignoring the things we have overrated and start appreciating the little things that have been underrated, life would be a whole lot simpler.", she winked at him and got up to leave.

However before leaving the two of them exchanged numbers and somewhere, underneath the sky, while talking about all the little things, a new friendship was born. She reached home and his mobile beeped. "Message from stranger", the notification read. "Don't you think happiness is a bit underrated?", he grinned at the screen and typed "Aye aye stranger" and hit send. And with this there was a new entry in her bucket of little things...."Talking to 'stranger'".