Eye Contact

Rarely - well, not so rarely these days - I drive in Mumbai. There are just some days that I don't want to deal with taking the only available space on the Borivalli fast, which involves contouring my body to the press of shoulders, backs, pot-bellied stomachs and crotches that define the available space my thin frame can occupy. By the way, this is a first class compartment I'm talking about - I've decided that the only difference between the first and second class compartments of any evening rush hour train in Bombay is in the smell of the perspiration coming from the armpit your nose is firmly pushed into. So sometimes, I drive to save me from that bouquet of sweat and hair-oil. Even though there comes a point during every single hour long car journey in bumper to bumper traffic which just doesn't want to move that I ask myself why I didn't just take the train in the first place.

But here is the thing about Bombay, that I didn't find in London. On the morning tube, or sitting on the bus, people, would never engage with those around them. Eye contact was accidental if it ever happened, and then there would be an apologetic glance away (with another quick peek to see if the other person wasn't too offended that eye contact took place in the first place "oh crap, they're doing the quick peek at the same time, this is awkward, how embarrassing")

I used to think of social performance art projects where I'd get a group of volunteers to walk through the carriages (you can actually walk) and shout out "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen! This is very important. Please take a moment to look at the person to your left, your right. Say hello! The same way you've shared eye contact with someone to indicate that you think I'm a f***ing lunatic for screaming on the London train, thats right Ladies and Gentlemen, snicker, share the ridiculing of me, but for the love of god, talk to each other!"

Bombay doesn't need a project like that, at all. Everyone looks at each other out of idle or active curiosity and its brilliant, because when you make eye contact, its very rare that its followed by just shifting the gaze elsewhere, if the gaze does shift, its more because, one of the two people involved in the engagement feel more curious about something else (What, I'm not interesting? I look like a foreigner on a local train and you don't want to figure me out?). Eye contact here always leads to something else, a smile, a question conversation about the weather (thats not just a British phenomenon by the way!), even that most dreaded of questions - "Where are you from?". But it leads to a connection, however momentary.

Why did I start this? Oh, yes. I was still somewhat in the London habit of not engaging with the people around me. Over here, this sort of becomes a gaze through the masses, the multitude. Because there are so many people. Everywhere you look, person, people, all become things, just another part of this landscape that I'm navigating. I was on Turner road stuck in the usual jam - thinking about how I should have taken the train. I looked across to my right and gazed idly through the glass windows of a posh car stuck in traffic not going the other way and looked into the taxi beyond it. Another taxi, another driver, even his face seemed featureless, I couldn't focus on it, and then I realised that the glare of the sun on posh car's windows seemed to create this un-focusable scenario in which I couldn't see the features on the face of the taxi driver, almost like he was wearing a nylon stocking over his head. Fascinated with the optical illusion, I squinted hard, refocused in an attempt to see his features, still no luck. Suddenly, the face turned to me, and the taxi driver did what I was not prepared for at all, He made eye contact. The amazing thing was that at that very second, all his features came into sharp resolution. I could see him! His eyebrows arched, to ask a question, and not a negative one like, "What you looking at kamina?" but more positive, "Whats up, is life good?". To my surprise, (I think partly from the triumph of actually seeing him) I instinctively raised my eyebrows at him, smirked, and shook my head up ever so slightly to communicating the same sentiment back. "Life's OK, (I can see you!) you have a good day now!". The horn behind him and the horn behind me started to get going, and we smiled to each other and ourselves as we both drove our opposite ways into the next bit of the traffic jam.

When did something like that ever happen in London?