Once upon a time, son, they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes: but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. There was a time indeed they used to shake hands with their hearts: but that’s gone, son. Now they shake hands without hearts: while their left hands search my empty pockets. ‘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 doors shut on me. So I have learned many things, son. I have learned to wear many faces like dresses – homeface, officeface, streetface, hostface, cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles like a fixed portrait smile. And I have learned too to laugh with only my teeth and shake hands without my heart. I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’, when I mean ‘Good-riddance’; 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, son. I want to be what I used to be when I was like you. I want to unlearn all these muting things. 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! So show me, son, how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile once upon a time when I was like you.

somehow i was just reminded of this poem today..call it an irony, i first came across this poem in my 7th grade...and it was a part of the literature curriculum..i guess at that age, it would be an exceptional case if someone really understood this beautiful composition..i cant say i hav ,fully, but yes..the "what a wonderful world" image which we hav in childhood sure gets dimmer as we "grow up"..do we really??i mean, growing up is supposed to make u mature n tht in turn shud make things simpler right??but i will surely not second the motion.there's a famous sayin in bengali that a bald man gonna stand under the beal(stona apple) tree only once in his life.guess being bald in a criteria though ;) coz yes , a person who has still not given up on being a child at heart, wil surely know what i mean!jus like poet okara, who says about the "masks", superficiality seems to beprevalent like a disease rather , like a trait now in adulthood...i feel things can be sorted better if kept simple ..but yah ...to each his own! :)