There is a saying in Tamil ‘Manidha manam oru kurangu (Man’s mind is a monkey). Just like the monkey jumps from branch to branch, the mind too jumps from one thought to another; the speed of the jumping depends on the monkey, oops I meant the person 🙂

It is fascinating to watch the mind. A recent ride on the Metro caught me observing what my mind kept observing and thinking. Metacognition is thinking about our thinking. I wonder what ‘observing our observation and thinking’ is called!! Metaobservation??

The first thing that caught my eye as the train moved, was the fiery red Gulmohar and the bright yellow copper pod flowers. What a sight to see!! Spring certainly brings its own beauty!! As the train passed by the canopy of these trees, my eyes caught on to the colours like a magnet. Nature is truly a marvel!!

As I looked around, I saw most people with a phone in their hands reading something, scrolling a digital page, watching videos, looking at instagram reels and youtube shorts (I did some eaveslooking :-)) and some in a conversation on the phone. Sitting and looking at the screen, standing and looking at the screen, leaning on a side frame and looking at the screen..  I felt like saying, “People, there is so much fun ‘paraakku paarthufying’ (just looking around you). Paraakku paarthufy and keep aside the phone.”

As I looked around, saw this young girl in a long gown with smocked sleeves. Ah, there is something about smocked dresses that fascinates me, every time I see one.. The way the smocking is done, the smocked cuff or the ruffle as it is called (the design immediately after the smocked part of the sleeve) – brings a smile in me everytime I see it!!

While I was admiring a dress, yet another one caught me – someone wearing a dress that looked so Victorian style. A very high neck top that had ruffles at the collar and an overall; with her hair in a messy topknot (a term I learnt just the previous day which was put to understanding seeing this :-)). It is peak summer and this dress could be uncomfortable to wear in this weather but she was carrying it off so well.

Here was this college going kid, sitting next to me and writing in a record book. She was looking into her mobile and copying from there. Chat GPT or Gemini, was my first thought.  No no, my thought was wrong. Her right hand was writing and left hand was scrolling and I saw her taking down the notes of someone else’s notes. Very interesting it was, to watch this girl copying with a steady writing and the smooth metro ride aided in her steady writing, I suppose. I couldn’t but compliment her for her nice looking handwriting; though the educator in me wanted to suggest that she keeps to the margin, all thru the page (I decided to keep the observation and suggestion to myself:-))

In one of the stations, a couple stepped into the train with the man carrying a small kid. While I went ‘oops’, some of the ladies in the train darted looks at him but no one said anything. He looked towards the next coach and saw a young lad giving him a broad grin. I don’t know what the grin meant but to me it looked as though saying, “Now you are going to get into trouble.” As though sensing something wrong, this man carrying the small kid looked around and saw only ladies in the coach he was standing in. He immediately walked past and moved to the next coach which was a ‘co-travel’ coach (if we can say co-ed for a school that has both boys and girls, co-travel is ok for a train travel too :-))

With a little more time to spare and my observing reaching a saturation limit, I watched my mind travel on something I have observed over the years, and which continues to fascinate me.

– If we have seen a person in close quarters behave in a certain manner, we either want to behave like them or we want NOT to behave like them. That depends on what captures our attention of that behaviour and the influence that person has over us.

– We may have seen someone in close quarters and for a period of time, being assertive. We see them having things done without causing much disruption to others. We want to be like them and we cultivate that trait..

– We may have grown up in an environment where we have seen and / or experienced physical abuse. This either can resolve us never to physically abuse anyone or because we have experienced it and that is one way to get things done, we also cultivate that habit..

– We may have interacted closely with someone who is prone to nitpicking on anything and everything. We have seen it so much. We have battled it also as much that we choose to be on the other extreme when interacting with others – not to say anything to what others do and how others are.. turning a blind eye to whatever is seen and heard..

– We may have certain traits that either is innate to us or over the many years has been carefully cultivated. When we see someone else displaying similar traits during our living with them or interacting with them, these traits resonate with us. The environment we are in, sees two people mirroring similar traits and because it resonates with us, we don’t mind the mirroring.

– On the other hand, we may interact or live with someone who displays traits similar to ours, traits that we pride ourselves in but when we see it in the others, we repel or rebel. We make up our mind not to be like them but what we aren’t always conscious of, is that we are like those we repel or rebel against. The more fight it, the more we stay with it.

Though I stepped off the metro train after a while, I continued my ride with my thoughts for a little more while. I realised that I was observing my thoughts as they flitted from one situation to another.

Truly ‘Manidha manam oru kurangu’ indeed!! How much my mind had jumped onto different branches and finally has come back to the same branch it started with!!! It must be running in my genes too!!