In older days when people lived in tribes, every one was related to every one else. One approached strangers only to kill them or to carry them off as slaves or wives. Later, village life developed and still everyone knew everyone else. At both stages there was no question of not recognising people.
But now we are civilized and know practically nobody in the City in which we live. And we are not expected to know either. One should not know one's neighbour, nor try to know. That will be prying curiosity and worse than reprehensible.
If a stranger were to enter a village he would immediately face a barrage of questions, rather a series of barrages at] every step and from every one. He would have to answer all the questions found in application forms, full name (pet name also), father's name, place of birth, caste, present pay, etc. He would have to give in addition, the latest entries from the birth, death and marriage register of his family and place, submit a meteorological report for purposes of comparison, be prepared and eager to discuss details of the cost of living index, willing to open, though rather cautiously, a school for scandal, (colleges thereafter), and all the rest of it that would eventually secure him not only admission to the village, but invitations to every home and to every feast. But if a man were to meet another man in town, both develop suddenly and against all pathology, stiff necks, day and night blindnesses, physical and mental deafnesses, and repel each other with all the force of personal magnetism and electricity. That is civilisation.
These 'citizens', they see so many that they see none, they hear so much that they hear nothing. But they can and do see and recognize when they want. They know only too well that a man's success depends upon a mastery of the difficult art of recognition.
A nod for a stranger who seems to, or seems to want to recognise you; a look of sympathy for the familiar beggar by the roadside which saves you pies without making him lose his hopes of, and prayers for you; a twinkle in your eye for the girl whom you often see, just enough to keep her too in hopeless hope; a slight twitching of your lips in contempt or recognition of the notorious bore; a broad grin and a sweet showing of teeth to your enemy whom civilisation teaches you to treat as friend; more mere nods for your inferiors or for those who are not presently useful but might be; a refusal to see the ever so many who want to receive not give; a sudden seeing of the formerly unseen because you have suddenly remembered something you can receive from him without giving; a rushing onward to, a warm shaking of hands and bodies and pot-bellies, the face meanwhile contorted and twisted with beams upon beams of smiles, especially if you are expecting something from him; thus do you, you favourite of fortune, you bloated embodiment of the pure spirit of success, progress along the highroads of life. See on the other hand what happens to the man who is unable or unwilling to learn this art. He finds himself shaking hands with the bore who would not leave him for love or for money. He frowns at his enemy and buys more undying hatred. He throws a coin at a beggar as if he were a dog and wins his ill-will and loses his money. He embarasses his girl by recognising her too much in the company of her not too friendly friends or even sisters. He stares his inferiors, who are trying elaborately to win his smile out of countenance. He sees all those whom he should not see and has no time for his real friends. Thus blundering at every step he finds all the roads of life leading inevitably through wildernesses and precipices to the depths of social hell.
How do we win friends? By recognizing people. How do we loose them ? By not recognizing them, of course. We meet somebody in the train, in the race-course, in the theatre, in the blackmarket. If we choose to recognize him when we meet again friendship is born. The more often he is recognized the more intimate the friendship becomes. But if we pass by, from motives gentlemanly or otherwise, we have lost a friend and perhaps for ever. This is true of friendships made under even more auspicious circumstances. Even the best friendship cannot stand half a dozen non-recognitions. It might be that our friend is shortsighted (physically, I mean) or has many worries or is notoriously absent-minded, that wouldn't save him. (In fact no single physical defect is so ruinous to friendship as eyes placed in thick lens cases). More divorces result from defective recognition than from drunkenness, habitual cruelty or brutality or even denial of conjugal rights. Recognize a woman, her presence, her absence, her qualities, her demands on you, everything but her imperfections (beware of recognizing them too often, except as perfections) and even the worse marriage becomes a tremendous success.
Recognition is a weapon which judiciously used can gain one the friendship of perfect strangers. I know one who is a past-master of this art of science. He just pretends that he recognizes in the person before him (an utter stranger, of course) an intimate pal, goes to him with out stretched hands, wide open mouth, floodlighting eyes, unmindful of the other chap's astonished stare. When sufficiently near he stops suddenly, starts, expressess his surprise, tells him he is sorry, tells him how strikingly like some Pythias of his own he is, and then proceeds legitimately to ask him his name, his address and what not. He has won a new friend. This works most admirably, he has assured me, with men newly come to town. Thereafter it is a matter of recognizing him often enough, and he is bound with hoops of steel. True, this method does not work with some of the veterans of the city. For instance, one hungry morning recently he happened to accost a middle-aged gentleman. He began in Tamil, realising his mistake changed suddenely into Telugu, and then more astonished still into broken Malayalam, but his friend would recognise nothing but Luck-now Urdu and that was beyond his depths. His good friend brushed him away like an unwelcome buror cur and turned to enter the gates of Hotel C.
But these failures are few and far between in my friends disinterested campaign for friendship and more friendship. He has a slower but surer process, for the more intractable type, if only he could know them at sight. And he generally does know them. Every time he meets one of such type, by design or accident, he puts on a longing lingering and at the same time a little puzzled look, as if he recognises in him somebody whose name he just cannot remember, someone whom he certainly knows but cannot say where they met, some one whose soul atleast he has met in some previous birth, or antenatal existance. Even a man of stone does not fail to have his interest reciprocally roused after a few weeks of this subtle process, especially in view of the fact that man is not a soulless animal. The man of stone slowly brings himself to studying this strange staring creature and might so far forget his property as to make enquiries about it without ofcourse its knowledge. And then comes the next step. An attempt at a smile, an unconscious lifting of the hand in salutation, he might suddenly change, become more stony and stare, or the face might soften and develop cracks and smile. Even if he only stares to-day my friend knows that he cannot but smile to-morrow. And then, the rock is cracked, the ice is broken and the highroads are open to lasting intimacy.
Recognition is double-edged. It can destroy as well create. Very often the most ardent friendships are destroyed by an injudiciously employed smile of recognition. Your superior officer is engaged in conversations that are to lead to unearned income, if you but in and nod your recognition you will certainly get the sack and even the rope to tie it up securely. A friend's ladylove is flirting with arrival and accidental recognition of this will very probably transform the girl into a hissing serpent satisfied with nothing less than your blood. A friend is leaving a house trying under the 'benefit of the doubt' clause of our merciful laws. If you recognise him then you have lost him for ever. So, you see, as in the exercise of every other art, there is a time to do and a time to refrain from doing.
There are less desperate cases of this sort. Go to a
All success depends upon this power of recognition. The inscrutable criminal lawyer emerges out of his den, stares vaguely and cruelly at all the supplicating repentant sinners, cannot recognise any, and then suddenly lights with a smile on the man whom his purse and he instinctively recognize. That means success and eventual elevation to the Bench, where he need see none, not even justice. Let him but once identify the wrong criminal, there is an end of his career. Those who can pay, desert him; those who cannot, flock to him; for they recognize him all right. So with doctors, officers, merchants. So even with States. The
All knowledge is but recognition, said Plato; all wisdom all success too, says I.
Even though we laugh when we read each paragraph of this article, the total feeling we get is of a general human tragedy. This maybe the reason for the general comment written in the introduction to his writings - "His humour is often a veneer which envelopes the deep pathos of life."
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important qualities for anybody who wants to stand for an election is the ability to recognise people. Of course that is not enough at all. But it does carry a solid 25% wieght among all abilities put together required to win an election.
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