People Watching

Am I ready to blog about people watching?
It is Sunday today and the last date is Tuesday. So I thought to myself, I better be ready to blog about people watching and write impromptu. I hope you enjoy it.
I initially got confused with the title, People Watching. Is it people watching me or me watching people do curious things? And I thought of writing about both.

People watching me
There was once a girl in her late teens commenting about me when I was in my first job that ‘there goes the PM Chandrasekhar’. I used to wear a vest like the one he used to wear. I was really taken aback. This was in Brindavan Gardens and my colleagues, a couple of women staff members who overheard the comment, were also taken aback about this unknown girl pulling my leg.

Me watching people
Yesterday I went to Yelagiri hills for a retreat for a day. And as I was walking with a camera hanging around my neck along the pathway around the lake looking at the trees, the boat rides and clicking some photographs of the spouse, and nature, there was a couple sitting with a 4-year-old. That kid seeing me immediately said, “Ammi, look, there is a photographer with a camera,” and the mother was pacifying him, “No, he is not a photographer. He is only a private photographer.” I was quite amused about the kid’s enthusiasm that he could get a photo of his and the dejection when he knew about me.

I have had the great opportunity of watching students doing different things. I stand at the gate and watch them come into the college and when they are late and repeat offenders, the way they avoid my gaze is very fascinating. Some of them even start running as soon as they near me, to avoid any comments/ scolding from me. And the excuses they come up with, when they take leave or have been on long leave, have always been enlightening.

On one occasion a parent told me that his son had told him that the Principal (I) would not allow him into the campus if he did not have a laptop of his own and the father bought him one taking a big loan and that kid was using the laptop to watch movies in the hostel!

I have also observed how students write during their exams. When I am on my rounds and go near them, the way the students try to cover their answer papers if they are not writing well has always made me smile inwardly.

And then I remember one of my grandfathers commenting when a batsman got out in a test match we were both watching together in Chennai about 25 years ago, “He must be shot for playing so recklessly!” So animated was he that I can’t forget him after all these years.