Muskaanein Jhooti Hai -

It will fit too.

Muskaanein jhooti hai.

But the smile? It stayed put. Perfect. Plastic. Muskaanein Jhooti Hai

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.

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. It will fit too

Look at the photograph they just posted. There I am, holding a champagne flute I haven’t drunk from, throwing my head back as if the venture capitalist just told the funniest joke in the world. He didn’t. He was explaining how he “almost” invested in a competitor. The smile on my face? A masterpiece of forgery. Painted on with the precision of a liar.

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. It stayed put

All of them.

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.