This oldest of quotes hit me with an unbelievable force in a recent journey...
I had travelled to Pondicherry (now Puducherry, for all you regional jingoists) and it seemed like the short flight and car journey had transported me to an altogether different country! Nothing was as it should've been - I didn't understand the bad words written on the washroom walls, most people understood English (or a highly region-specific version of it anyway), meal timings were all screwed up - if you went to a restaurant at 2.30, it be shut, 'cos lunch, of course, got over at 1, and to top it all, auto rickshaws used the horns characteristic of the BEST monsters, making me jump in panic on more occasions than one, I can assure you!
It was here, in the land where up was down, where a breakdown of appearances happened for me. A really old man (nothing less than 280 years old), wearing only a lungi was the entreprenuer who rented us our means of transport (a 50cc gearless TVS moped - i prefer to think of it as an automatic transmission, compact urban transportation vehicle, ahem ahem).
At first, he came across as a senile, ill-tempered old man, whose English was restricted to "deposit 500 rupee" and "ID card deposit". By the last day of our stay, however, having rented the moped for 5 days from him, we'd delved a little deeper...
We found a grandfatherly figure, who helped us figure a way around keeping the bike (prefer to call it that) beyond rental hours, told us off for roaming about till very late at night (9.30pm), and invited us into his house...a really sweet old man who was only looking for some kind words, beyond which all barriers of language and region evaporated...ok, maybe not all, but the deal sure got easier.
Also, got me thinking - maybe we do judge too fast and too harshly, based on nothing more than appearances. A celebrated book (Blink), by a celebrated author celebrates the human ability to semi-consciously judge everything we need to know about a person or situation in the first few minutes of an interaction - I say relax, and let the person in front of you relax - this way you're likely to see a side to people and situations that you'd miss otherwise.
This is not to take away anything from the human instinct - that is an extremely useful tool - but the fact is that in today's life of extreme distrust in our fellow being, the walls that we build around ourselves sometimes become too tall and solid... Maybe we should just take the time from our busy schedules to give people a chance to let their guard down a little bit.
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Well said! I guess judging people is something that comes naturally to most of us, but what is really required is that we "continue to judge"! This is what gives us a chance to look at the "deeper" aspects of people, over a longer period of time.
ReplyDeleteHence I'm still judging you even though I've known you for close to 14 years now...I still haven't reached a conclusion though! :P
Hmmm, the other phrase is 'Don't judge a book by it's cover'. I like your descriptions of the city and the old man - the essence is well captured :). Btw, I think you've got the book wrong. Blink does not advocate making snap judgements. It just demonstrates that experience in a particular field equips people with a keener observation and hence they see things that would otherwise elude lesser mortals. So practice is essential to expertize.
ReplyDeletebeg to differ, Shavli - Blink, through numerous examples, emphasises the ability of people to be able to form near-accurate judgements about people or situations, with only a very limited time of observation...doesnt necessarily have to be people from a particular field. So, while it doesnt advocate snap judgements, it does, in a way, celebrate the human instinct...
ReplyDeleteNo it's not human instinct, it's the cultivated observation prowress. Take any example - be it the food critics, the relationship observers - these people can make quick conclusions based on things they have learned with experience. So it's not their 'raw' instinct, but that aided by experience.
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