You Staring at Me?

One should never be confused by Mumbai’s international status into thinking that it is an international city where international behaviour applies.
For instance – in Mumbai, staring at people is not only OK, it is part of the scenery.

Imagine me, fresh off the plane. A security guard at the airport is staring at me, but with no expression (friendly or otherwise) on his face.
Now, a stare in England is an invitation to an interchange of some sort, or, if prolonged a few seconds, a sign of aggression.
I lock stares with him, but he doesn’t look away or change his expression. This is now becoming (for me) a serious standoff. Angered (I’d had a long flight…) I challenge him: “Do you have a problem of some sort with me?” Only then does he look away, saying nothing. Moment over.

Now I look back, I realise that the poor security guard must have thought I was crazy, or had taken an extra dose of testosterone that morning. Because his blank staring – which in a British pub might have led to a fight – is just something people in Bombay do. They stare quite openly at one, as a matter of course.
I suppose they might stare longer at someone who is foreign, or a woman who has bare shoulders, for curiosity value, but they just like to stare at people. And that’s it.

This cultural misunderstanding can lead to almost comic moments.
In one supermarket, I caught a man staring at me. As we were both stuck in checkouts, there was nothing else to do, and I stared back at him. His face was unflinching, and I thought I could detect a whiff of hostility, so I changed from stare to glare. By now ten seconds had passed. He didn’t alter his face.
I was getting annoyed, but in a spirit of Gandhigiri, decided to smile. Then to cock my head in puzzlement. Then to raise my eyebrows. Not one reaction from him as he simply continued to bore his gaze into my face; and now we were (I thought) into a game of chicken – who will drop the stare first?
After thirty seconds, he slowly looked to one side.
Had I won? To be honest, I think not. He’d obviously grown bored of my features, and, unembarassedly, moved on. It had all been a storm in my own teacup.
Yet, in England or America, this would have been a match of aggression, two stags locking horns.

An American woman I know now has her own technique. If she can be bothered (it would be too exhausting to do it on all occasions), she smiles – and smiles – and smiles – until her interchange is met also with a smile.
Because Indians stare in such an unconcerned way, she says when the eventual smile comes back, it is almost a smile of surprise, as though to say: “me? You’re smiling at me? Well I do like that!”
Needless to say, she restricts herself in this performance to children, the old and to women…

So, how does a reserved Englishman cope with being stared at? What I would have called the obvious response, which is to nod in recognition of someone’s interest or to say, American-style, “Hiya! How are you this good morning?” and walk on, is simply inappropriate. No one is trying to engage with you, so to respond as though they were is seen as odd.

No, what I do now is largely try to ignore it in the nicest possible way. Walking the pavements, passing through the tunnels of stares, is at first difficult – it doesn’t come naturally to me. Yet one does it, albeit with one’s English mind still ticking over and thinking “gosh, I hope I’m not offending anyone by not returning his or her looks…”

++

Just one postscript to this.
When I discussed this issue with a young woman I know, she bowed forward and covered her head in her hands. Then she looked up and said patiently, “You simply don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, do you? In any culture, we have to deal with this sort of thing every minute of every day.”
Ah, I said.

(Comment by clicking on 'comments'. Commenting is open on this site; you do not have to register, or leave posts with your real name on them).