Men who stare at...Everything!

I was walking on the street one day, lost in my thoughts when I noticed a very peculiar thing. All around me, men were staring at every other person that came his way, irrespective of their sex... not just take a quick look or glance, but flat out stare! And they were fairly consistent in their stares, unlingering and straight into the eyes. I was at the receiving end of a particularly murderous stare that unnerved me and got me to think why do people have the urge to stare at all? Isn’t it considered to be impolite to stare at someone in public? But then I thought that politeness and manners aren’t exactly the etiquettes that you go looking for in people from a small town like Ranchi. Over the time, I saw people doing this all the time. Now you might think this is just all in my mind and that I am imagining these things but I know when I am being stared at. It's not hard to notice when some is looking directly at you while their eyes follow as you move. I had no idea what could drive someone to look at a complete stranger with the weirdest of expressions that you will ever see on a human face. 
                   To have some answers to such behaviour, I did what every other person does so casually today..I simply googled it! Through the search, I came to know about this weird film starring George Clooney and Kevin Spacey, named Men who stared at Goats. The film is apparently inspired by the events laid out in journalist Jon Ronson’s extensively researched book by the same name about a group of soldiers, who allegedly called themselves ‘The Jedi’, and who were trained to be able to fight wars in esoteric and “non-violent” ways. According to the book, their methods and objectives included learning to live off nuts, learning to be invisible, deterring the enemy with ‘sparkly eyes’, walking through walls and, ultimately, killing goats by staring at them! (yes, you read that correctly) And all these time, we used to think that this power belonged to the mythical ‘rishi munis’ of yesteryears, who could apparently turn a person to ashes with one stare..tch tch!

                       So we come back to the question- why do people insist on staring in the first place? It is really difficult to answer in an exact way as there are numerous reasons why people keep on looking at someone or something. But I am pretty sure that none of these applies to my uncultured and aggressive Ranchiites (all age groups), who will continue to stare at each other as a tradition. An occasional gaze stolen for a passing pretty girl in understandable, but why stare at an overgrown middle aged aunty and make her conscious? It leads more than often to an embarrassing sudden re-adjustment of the saree to hide the hint of cleavage that she thought might be visible to those starers. Her caution is still justified, with the hypersexuality prevalent in today's society, but then why stare incessantly at a potbellied uncle? 
                  Insecurity might be one reason that I think leads to staring. People who feel insecure about themselves can stare at others. They need to know what everyone else looks or behaves like in order to make sure that they look or behave in a particular way. Or it might be that staring given them a pleasure unfulfilled by shagging at their homes watching mindless porn. But then, what pleasure can it give you..the sight of men and women flinching at your stares cannot give your testosterone a high. I tried to find out myself by staring at each and every passerby in a mall here, but ended up making a fool of myself as no one noticed that I was trying to catch their attention (maybe people have got so used to it now that they don't even give a fuck). Then I thought maybe it was the wrong place to find answers or maybe I am wrong in my assumptions, maybe people just stare to be assholes! But I did find out that 'ignoring' is bliss when it comes to being on the opposite side of a stare. Next time though, when someone stares at me, I want to try that ‘sparkly’ stare on the onlooker, thinking of a goat in place of that person, to see the consequences of this 'psychic' gesture, though I suspect that it would lead to his death..:)