You can tell a person from the eyes. Small wonder, I detest the shifty-eyed types the most. Chances are, you too do the same. So often, I’ve come across the toughest guys who never look me straight in the eye. I know why. Because they know that I know where to hurt them the most. And then there are those with the deep penetrating gaze. They pierce your eyes to force you to blink, and then, shred you to pieces just by that silent, solitary stare.
Of course, you can always turn the tables on such types. Stare back at them in your calm demeanour. And let your lips do the trick. It’s simple. Just relax your facial muscles, then purse your lips a bit and stretch them sideways. And smile. Without letting your eyeballs roll. Without letting your eyelids flap. Go, try it. Believe you me, there’s no smarter way of disarming a person. In the biggest battles of the mind, the general who fixes his stare on the opponent and smiles always wins the war.
There are others too. Those bubbly sorts. Their eyes often betray their pain. And then, there are those with dilated pupils. One look at them and you know it’s time for a couch at the shrink’s. I could go on and on and write an entire column on eyes without blinking. But that’s not my intention. I’d rather recommend a wonderful book called Blink by New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell. It’s about those who have perfected the art of ‘thin slicing’ — knowing the very few things that matter. It’s about choices that we appear to make in the blink of an eye. Just let me add this last one thing before taking off on a world tour: Beware of the person who looks you straight all right, but his eyes pervade a different plane, having wandered into the dark recesses of his own mind, even as his stare settles squarely on your face. For you never know what’s next.
I engaged one such person last fortnight over two long hours, trying to make sense of what’s up. ‘What’s your take on secularism?’ I asked Gujarat’s mercurial chief minister Narendra Modi two weekends ago, penetrating my gaze deeper into his, expecting him to blink first. Modi’s eyelids did not flutter. ‘Ekam sat vipraha bahuda vadanti,’ he said. 'Satya ek hai. Usko pane ke bhinn raaste hain aur alag shabdo mein batate hain.’ Truth is one. The wise call it by different names. Coming from a man who’s been branded the Butcher of Gujarat, Modi’s profound statement literally came as an eye opener.
Is he, after all, as we would like to believe, so inhuman as to preside over the massacre of thousands of innocents because, as in his own words, they chose to speak a different tongue, tread a different path, in pursuit of what, after all, is ekam sat?
‘I don’t believe in perverted secularism that humiliates Indian values, Indian culture, Indian ethos. And this perverted secularism cannot promote true secularism.’ Modi had taken over by now, his eyes fixed firmly on mine.
‘So would you take kindly to a Muslim girl getting married to a Hindu boy,’ I asked, too scared to put the question more bluntly and alter the gender perspective.
Modi remained unfazed. ‘For the past three years, we are the only government in the country giving a Rs 10,000 cash reward to newlyweds who opt for inter-caste and inter-religious marriages. I attend those weddings myself.’
Something must be terribly wrong in the state of Gujarat to make a monster of a monk. How could you possibly call Modi a butcher? Forget the countless victims of mass murder and rape who continue to haunt our collective conscience to this day, because some of us who tread a defined path can’t see eye to eye with others outside our flock. Forget the innumerable depositions before the courts of law, even the recent revelations of a senior policeman.
Is Modi really a sinner?
But then, for a man who is wise enough to recite the scriptures and know that all paths lead to heaven, how could Gujarat possibly happen?
I didn’t have to go far for an answer. My eyes still resting on his, I asked if Modi was willing to concede space to Irfan Pathan as the icon of modern Gujarat.
That’s when Modi’s eyes began to roll into the deeper recesses of his mind, even as his gaze remained transfixed on me. And after a momentary pause, he said, ‘And so is Parthiv Patel ... and Kiran More ... and Sanjay Leela Bhansali ... Our most visible icons are Amul, the Reliance refinery, our ports. Nowadays, garba is our most visible icon.’
I knew Narendra Modi had blinked.
As I left Modi’s high security residence, I paused to pray in silence: asatormaa sad gamaya, tamasormaa jyotir gamaya, mrityor ma amritamga mayo. Lead me from untruth to truth, lead me from darkness unto light, lead me from death unto immortality.
Inshallah! What?
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