The 'People' Person

Few would call me a social being. Even fewer would find me particularly engaging company. Those that do have most likely earned it, cos I have put them through the same rigorous standards that I have every human being and they have passed the test ;) The rest of humanity, I like at a distance.

And yet Homo sapiens are my strongest allies. I don’t know what I would do without them! Who would I observe, judge, criticize, penalize, extol, worship, classify and put in categories?

I think it started with high school Shakespeare and vivid character sketches of the exuberant Touchstone vs. the melancholy Jacques, the contemplative Hamlet, the ruthless Shylock, the meddling Puck. And the less melodramatic, yet equally potent, facets of Jane Eyre’s persona and the very temperamental little woman, Jo. As much for my passion for anything that didn’t involve mind-boggling numbers and equations, as for my intrigue with the human psyche, I ardently got into their shoes, dissected their personalities and strip-searched their minds. Almost as if they were real. And then I wondered – why couldn’t they be real?

Tiring of two-dimensional characters and a tad desettled by the intangibility of print and celluloid, I took a leaf out of my text book and brought it to reality. Turning my examination to real human beings made the possibilities endless, the choices many and the world my veritable playing field. Even more so, in a little subcontinent teeming with more human beings than it could possibly handle, where tight corners and perplexing scenarios were a part of daily life. Everyone was fair game -- my best friend, my far-off cousin, that abominable guy in the neighborhood -- not entirely free of bias, but subject to the same relentless scrutiny. I had no holier-than-thou objective of revolutionizing the human race. Everyone was entitled to be themselves. I liked the differences, enjoyed the versatility, delighted in the labels, and I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

Linda Goodman helped embellish the process, so the “dreamers” could become Pisceans, the “romantics,” Scorpions, the “scary ones,” Ariens, and I could take great pride in being the practical, logical, sensible earth sign, with two feet planted on the ground and one head firmly on the shoulders. Little did I realize that I was a romantic of my own kind – looking at the world through rose colored glasses, translating fiction to reality and attempting to transport the silver lining from the very silver screen. Walking down streets in search of Laura Castellano, along alleyways hoping to get stymied by BA Baracus and entering offices, fully expecting to see a William Kane. Being Dagny Taggart and Kate Blackwell, dreaming of Howard Roark and Hank Reardon.

Then came stage three: fascination with some people, annoyance with others, sheer intolerance of still more. Enough to fire me up. String me along into an hour-long debate. Sit in awe for days on end. Why is Laloo Yadav so darn stupid? What is that inexcusable fanatic, Thackeray trying to achieve? Rajiv Gandhi is the only cultured politician. Awe of the Karan Thapar of Eyewitness fame and being totally besotted with Gurumurthy‘s unique line of thinking. I sat in rapt attention while Tim Sebastian tore people apart on Hardtalk and Siddharth Basu scoffed at no-gooders on Mastermind India. I loved Ajay Jadeja’s nonchalance. Sachin Tendulkar’s intensity. Pete Sampras’ invincibility. Detested the pompous youngster that ruthlessly broke down my demigod of a decade (not for long, considering he now adorns my computer screen ;)).

I liked the politics and the sports, I enjoyed the books and the movies, essentially as representatives of people’s personas, so I could look at them and wonder – what was behind that Pistol Pete steely reserve and that ruthless Thapar aggression? And I carried it wherever I went.

Watching, observing, learning people.

Moving to an ethnically variegated country provided more angles for my love affair with the Homo sapien. Americans are an exuberant people, I have seen few that aren’t socially gifted. Chinese are no-nonsense and persevering. Brits are insanely witty; now, if only the laughter touched the eyes. Why are the smartest and funniest people almost always Jews? Why does it have to be an Indian that jumps the line?

American politics provided more labels, more prototypes, more easily fittable templates, columns and rows with issues and beliefs and people and places. A year in this country and I was lost in the subtle differences between a social liberal and libertarian, a fiscal conservative and liberal, the patakis and guilianis pitted against the clintons and kennedies, the limbaughs and moores against the mcCains and liebermans. My character sketch of Kerry included everything from his captainship of the debating team at Yale to his aggressive outcry post-Vietnam. I had a mental make-up of Howard Dean that toned down the dementia and highlighted the intensity. One of Bush that hyped the stupidity and downplayed the niceness.

And noone seems to escape that human radar. My co-worker goes out for coffee and I notice his cup isn’t attested with the familiar green circle. “I thought you went down to Starbucks?” An innocent, guileless question.

“Starbucks? Oh, no.” An innocent, guileless answer.

Not to me, however. I have to immediately jump to conclusions and fit him in my mental list of prototypes. “Oh, you are one of those,” I say with a glint in my eyes, mentally patting myself on the back for having found someone I could vent my pro-capitalist feelings to.

A quizzical lift of the eyebrow precedes such disappointingly trite reasoning as, “I just didn’t want to walk that far.”

Fair enough.

Not in my world, however. In my world every human being is a complex conglomeration of ideas, feelings, opinions and emotions, every action an expression of that irrefutable belief, every statement a release of that undying emotion. Nothing can be pedestrian, everything borders on the philosophical and profound...

I couldn’t say it better than my good pal, Dee:

"Why the hell do I need to get deep into [the psyche] of every person I am interested in (I mean, life is short) instead of treating them like a black box and sending inputs that I care about to see what outputs I get? Instead I will prattle on topics completely irrelevant to me (sorta like a chameleon) just to draw out what I need...ugh!!!!!"

And a very pleasurable ugh at that...

Off the top of my head, the ‘things’ I am currently fascinated by:

Roger Federer
Dan Brown’s creative juices
Max Kellerman’s quick wit
Bush’s idiocy
Bill Maher’s radicalism
How Bush and Maher can be the same species on the same planet...

For a self-proclaimed misanthrope, my life sure seems to be exceedingly human-centric...