Looking a Little Differently.

Once, I was in a crowded bus. It was packed to the brim with locals and foreigners, all sense of personal space ignored. There I stood, a somewhat arrogant and cheeky smile playing on my face. Strangers stared at me with nowhere else to look; wondering, puzzled about what I was laughing at. Why, you of course. Isn't it obvious? In this packed bus, I laugh at those who have seemed to have lost all sense of manners and decency that our parents instilled in us at tender ages. All manners and decency, lost (or at the very least, momentarily stored away) as they push in and out, all fighting for that empty seat or as they elbow another for more room.

I use my naturally big eyes to search and scan, but most if all to observe. I see the old grandmother hanging on for dear life as the driver makes sharp turns (far too sharp for a vehicle that big) And the teenage boy seated right in front of her, doing his best to avoid her eyes.. And the guilt. I see many wary faces. I see the annoyed man, annoying others by pushing against them. I watch the over-exaggerated facial expressions of people having some sort of worthless conversation about that cute guy that they regularly stalk. I smile at the silliness of it all, how barbaric people become over something as petty as an open seat. What silly folk these people were! I would never do that. Never would I compromise my virtues the way they do.

But still, I liked to watch. It's amusing what people do when they think others aren't watching. Perhaps that is why God gifted me with my big, almond shaped eyes. So I could see the beauty, the truth, the horror or the amusement in the little things. To admire that of which people usually shun and ignore. Perhaps He wanted me to notice. So there I was; observing, seeing, and noticing.

Then my eyes fell upon a man. He was an old man, seated by the window. No one paid him any mind; in fact, most avoided him because of his vagabond appearance. His clothes were faded and tattered, his face dull and hidden behind an untidy, unkept, bushy moustache. He was probably even responsible for one of the many exotic smells wafting throughout the cramped bus. But his eyes were what caught my eye. His eyes had a mischievous twinkle. They were the one youthful thing about him. This roused my curiosity. He too scanned around him, his moustache twitching every time he smiled. He looked around, laughed, muttered to himself. Frankly he looked mad to the rest of the temporary occupants of the evening bus; but I knew different; I recognised that somewhat arrogant, somewhat knowing and cheeky smile, because the same smile was playing across my face.

At one point he noticed me watching, and for the longest moment I have ever experienced, we stared at each other with that same smile, with that same cheeky twinkle in our eyes. That was when I realised something I should have a long time ago. I want to grow old to be that old man; I want to be as observant as I am now, if not more. I want to know that little inside joke. I don’t care if I looked mad; I wanted to be someone who had experienced the world. I wanted to be someone who could sit in a crowded bus and have the RIGHT to mock people’s awful behaviour in my head, to watch them. I want to have eternally youthful eyes. I never want to tire of watching.

His stop came before mine. He had barely gotten up, and already a lady that looked like a ball of jell-o was pushing and shoving to claim the seat for herself. She shoveed the old man out of the way and he shakes his head in annoyance and mutters something sarcastic that makes me laugh. He looks up, sees me watching. And just before he gets off the bus, he takes one last look at me and we enjoy a laugh together. There we were, strangers. But in that crowded bus, we were friends with our own inside joke; because we both saw things others didn’t. We were of same kin.