Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Stare

Now that my right arm is showing signs of recovery, and that a new month has started, ushering in another 400Mbs of download limit for me, I felt I can finally resume my blogging habit.

There have been many new things that I have learnt as I am recuperating now, many new experiences, and hopefully the learning curve hasn't already peaked off or plateaued away yet. Challenges are aplenty, with even mundane activities now posing as tough problems. But as they say, accidents can only hurt the body, not the spirit, so well, my life goes on undaunted. Coming back to my blog, I was wondering which topic shall I first write about - from the many that I have in mind. But it isn't a difficult thing to decide - there is a thing that I happen to notice everywhere, something that ceaselessly reminds me that I don't look 'normal', that there is something different about me - and you guessed it - the ubiquitous Indian stare.

It all started on the last Sunday of March when I got my head tonsured to 'beat the heat', attracting thousands of stares in the bargain. The accident on Monday added to the attention and now I am a walking - talking showpiece - a sink for all stares, from young and old alike. The Indian stare is something that is very distinctive about us people - I had gone to USA with a clean shaven head, albeit without a plastered right arm, but no one chose to pass even a second's worth of glance at me. But back home, the situation's the exact opposite.

When a foreigner or a native like me, with something different to my physical appearance walks into their midst, our folks leave aside whatever task they are doing, no matter how important, and start staring. There are also those who choose to multitask - they go about with their activities as they continue to stare. Boys and girls, men and women, uncles and aunties, young and old, people from all strata and niches of the Indian social structure - they are right up there, united in their efforts to stare. They stare you down for a good couple of minutes, or perhaps five, until they have satisfied their visual needs with all there is to be seen. When their eyes meet mine, and as I smile, more so out of habit than any other reason, I get a few more stares in return.

There is nothing harmful about the stare, I have noticed. This isn't the kind of stare you get in western countries, that is mainly associated with ill feeling or an evil eye. The Indian stare has a compassionate touch to it, sometimes with a twist of pity and a pinch of good will. Our culture it seems has so developed that staring isn't a bad habit. Rather, not staring is looked upon as a sign of indifference. And it's something instinctive - no one is taught how or when to stare - we are all born masters in our own right.

But I love the stare. It gives me the sweet feeling that my people notice me, they care for me, even total strangers, as my first few days following the mishap taught me. But I hope I soon get away from the receiving end of it, and hope no one gets into the position I am in right now for me to stare at in return.

Happy staring!

6 comments:

~Abhi said...

Whats interesting is can you feel or somehow know that someone is staring at you without actually looking at them?

Sid said...

It's a collective stare you see, not the one off type, so it's hard to go unnoticed.

10111 said...

I thought we Indians had actually come to terms with the tonsured head as a regular phenomenon. So regular that it wont deserve any more stares. Maybe I am thinking a little ahead of time.

Sid said...

Me too... had I known we hadn't, perhaps I would've given it a second thought.

AstralEye said...

i want to stare at u too :( u shudnt unfairly deprive me of that right.. so come to iit soon :P

Bastet said...

:) Good piece of writing , baab :)