HABIT OF OBSERVING

I have been writing many times on what I had observed during my walks or visit to market etc. I had developed this habit of observing right from my childhood.

 My father was in state government service thus we used to shift to new places on regular intervals. I was about 8 or 9 years old when I got to learn importance of observing things. At that time a police officer was our neighbor. I used to hear almost everyone praising as to how he could foresee and control crime. Once when we were playing hockey in the improvised field near our residence, he joined us. After the game he asked one of his policemen to fetch sweets and soft drinks for all of us. He started talking to us informally advising us to be good in not only studies but other activities also. He then invited us to ask anything we wanted to. I asked him as to how could he foresee things and control crime so effectively as told by so many uncles. He laughed and then on serious note he told that one should always observe things around. He asked me if there were any huge trees close to us. I started looking around. He told me that while I came to that field I should have glanced and observed that instead of looking around now. He further told me that while in market or any place we should observe people around without staring at them. This can help us if something goes wrong.

I learnt that lesson. I started practicing it since then. Afterwards in my career, there were couple of appointments when this became all the more important. This also includes observing facial expressions or body language of persons, in particular ones you speak to, specially while negotiating or finding truth.

My idea of telling this is as there is an incident which I observed recently. I will share in my next post.