We are told, actions speak louder than words. Maybe that’s why we jump the wagon and judge people in the first instance by the way they act. The mind puts small post-its on each person it meets and then it forgets to take it off. Like the rickshaw driver who sang his throat out on my 5 Km drive form office to work - I labeled him ‘eccentric’. Maybe he had a reason – his son did well in the exams, he escaped an accident, his wife cooked for him, or maybe the rains awakened the singer in him. Whatever was his reason – he seemed to be quite unperturbed by the slow moving traffic he waded his three-wheeler and a grumpy passenger through. I tried hard to dress my face in a frown to express my disgust at his act – no so much for his vocal shortfalls but because I wanted to subtly announce my disregard for his behavior. Should the mind be allowed such liberties? Should it be allowed to evaluate God’s creation? Should it question His judgment on rendering finesse to them? People’s actions are sometimes like blemishes on the skin. They last for a while. But while they last, they make you look ugly.
Not all that meets the eye is true. Not all that is true meets the eye either. Perceptions thrive on the limited interactions that we have with other people. Limited not just in time but also in scope and circumstances. How can such a brevity of time do justice to the intricacies and nuances of the human character? Have you ever imagined graduating from a different school, working with a different bunch of people, living in a different city, in a different country maybe, if you had different friends – richer, dumber, blind, of a different nationality – and how it would have changed you as a person? Would you have laughed as often? Would you have had the same fears? Would you have longed for the same things that you do now? Would the same things inspire you? Would the same people motivate you? Would you derive pleasures in the things you do now or would you treat them as silly? Man and his character are like a footprint in sand. Time and tide washes it away and then someone imprints something new. It’s a never ending cycle. This pursuit of creating and maintaining an identity. This relentless struggle to make mental maps of people we used to know and faces we used to cherish only because we have the power to think and imagine.