My first memories of people involved them being either nice or bad. In the world of toddler-thought, we form our perception of people based on our first impressions – a custom we carry with us into each rebirth.
World, this is the first thought we have about people. Everything else is secondary.
Thus, if we labeled someone a ‘nice guy,’ we felt comfortable being our ‘angelic’ selves around them. As for the ‘bad guys’, it was best to avoid them like the plague. For such cranks were known to have shockingly brutal reactions to the simplest things kids do, such as happily running around screaming and playing. And … uhm … maybe breaking a few things sometimes.
Therefore, uncles, aunties, teachers, and virtually all elders were categorized as either ‘nice’ or ‘bad’. Of course, all our peers were always ‘nice’. We were a group linked by a common need to be reciprocally nice.
Our first encounters in life with ‘bad guys’ would be when neighborhood bullies (mainly locals who were bigger than us) taunted us for being ‘non-local and different’, and they’d spare no effort to make life difficult for us. Our only recourse would be to avoid them.
But then as we grew older our ‘group’ dispersed to various outstation schools for post-primary schooling. There, we’d discover, often to our dismay, that the scenario outside the primary school world differed greatly from the cozy protectionist compartments we had just stepped out of. New methods had to be used here to make new like-minded friends. And new ‘lists’ had to be prepared for people to avoid, as per our ‘perceptions and first impressions’. Quite a daunting task.
But necessity is the mother of innovation and desperation. It had to be done.
Another difficulty was the grading of the teachers, particularly the fair-skinned foreign Brothers. It was near impossible to fathom out their minds. Their faces rarely revealed their thoughts. In my first week at boarding school, in Class 4, I had only just made my first friend when Brother ‘Pokerface’ announced the line-up for breakfast. As I playfully ran around the line of students, I suddenly found myself clutched by the livid red faced Brother who landed more than 10 heavy-handed wallops on my butt. His podgy, well-cushioned hand landing on my cushioned butt protected me from feeling any hurt, but I was so shocked and unnerved that I lost control of my bladder and leaked a couple of spoonfuls of my pee.
So my first lesson at boarding school was that these foreign Brothers are damn near inscrutable, with very misleading appearances. Hell, Brother Pokerface was easy to perceive as a ‘bad guy’.
And the second lesson. At fresh places – new people, new rules.
But being one among 500+ boarders, a little care kept us out of the way of the Brothers.
A different ball game was the peer-level nuisance. Once, at the dormitory, I had the misfortune of having the most able-bodied, grumpy, and irritable bully’s bed next to mine. There was always this threat of him deciding he’d been rubbed the wrong way and reacting violently. One night, as we were preparing to go to bed, he was already lying down, his eyes shut. It was too strong a temptation for me to not say something about this goon, lost in dreamland. Which was when I committed the colossal blunder of uttering sarcastically to my other side neighbour, “One idiot is already asleep”. Immediately, the feigning ass opened his eyes, glaring murderously at me. Near well gave me a heart attack. Weak-kneed with fright, I almost fell to the floor (‘nearly dropped dead’ would be the better description). Groping frantically for a lifesaver, I managing to barely mumble, “No, no, nothing!” and looked away.
Phew! Narrow escape.
At every level in life, people – children and adults – seek the ‘nice guys’. Even in college, and also at the workplace. We are drawn to people who are pleasant and easy to deal with. Dale Carnegie, the famous author, has said aptly, “You can attract more flies (meaning ‘people’) with a drop of honey than with a bottle of vinegar.”
In moments of reflection, I recall some instances where I must have been a ‘nice guy’ to some and a ‘bad guy’ to some others.
One instance involves my neighbourhood kids – a spirited bunch of 10 to12-year-olds, who I used to shoo away for the commotion and nuisance they created outside my house. There is no doubt what these boys’ perception of me was. Of late, however, I have abandoned my intolerance of their games and cheerful banter. I not only don’t shoo them away anymore, but have even begun enjoying watching them play, and occasionally pick up a chat with them.
The kids, their understanding of the world being still at a developing stage, are quite bewildered at this change in me. The other day my son, returning from work, overheard them discussing what they should make of ‘Khadoos Uncle’s recent changed behaviour’.
He couldn’t stop to hear their conclusion, though. I would have loved to know if the lads had given me a ‘nice guy’ status now.