Muskaanein jhooti hai.
It will fit too.
Tonight, in the rearview mirror, I watch my own face relax. The corners of my mouth fall. The forehead uncreases. The mask slides off and lands in my lap. And beneath it… there is nothing. No sadness, even. Just a deep, exhausted silence. The face of a soldier returning from a battle no one knew was being fought.
All of them.
Look at the waiter. He smiles as he hands me the bill. Hope you enjoyed everything, ma’am. His smile is a shield against rudeness, a toll he pays to keep his job. Look at the couple at the next table. She is smiling as he scrolls through his phone. Her smile says, I am fine. Her eyes say, See me.
We are a society of beautiful ruins hiding behind bright filters. My mother calls. “Beta, you look so happy in the photos!” I don’t tell her that happiness now feels like a language I once knew but forgot how to speak. I just send her a smiling emoji. She sends one back. Two masks kissing across a digital wire.
But the smile? It stayed put. Perfect. Plastic. Muskaanein Jhooti Hai
But here is the real lie: We think we are the only ones faking it. We see a thousand smiles on the street and assume everyone else has found the secret. They haven’t. We are all just actors in a silent film called Survival .
The Context: Neha is the CEO of a fast-growing startup. To the world, she is the poster child of success. Tonight, after a funding party where she laughed and posed for a hundred photographs, she sits alone in her parked car.
The smile? That beautiful, crooked, brave, jhoothi smile? The corners of my mouth fall
I have become a cartographer of false joy. I map it onto my lips every morning before the first Zoom call. I drape it over my shoulders like a designer jacket. “Good morning, team! Let’s crush the day!” My voice chirps, a digital bird made of wires and anxiety. Behind the camera, my hands are shaking. The revenue forecast is wrong. Two senior developers just resigned. My father’s medical reports came back this morning.
Muskaanein jhooti hai.
So I will wipe the mascara that ran an hour ago. I will start the car. I will go home and feed the cat. And tomorrow morning, I will open the closet, pick out a dress, and pick out a smile. And beneath it… there is nothing
The music is still ringing in my ears. A hollow, plastic beat. My cheeks ache. Not from genuine laughter—I’ve forgotten what that feels like—but from the muscles I’ve held in a perfect, rigid arc for four hours.