More than a nodding acquaintance

Mohanmeet Mann Khosla

The dictionary defines a nodding acquaintance as ‘a slight, incomplete, or superficial knowledge of something or someone’. We spend years in an office where a colleague is little more than an initial on an office memo. We spend a lifetime in a neighbourhood where the person next door is a disembodied head glimpsed over a hedge. Often, we visit houses masquerading as homes, see a spouse turn into a nodding acquaintance in the aftermath of a fight and a childhood friend become just a name that once our hearts knew. More often than not, our brains have but a nodding acquaintance with what our tongue is saying. We nod when we understand. We nod more when we do not. We mindlessly and repeatedly hit the ‘like’ button, sending nods skittering into the ether. We ensure that others mark our presence even as we note our own absence.

But does the dictionary always get it right? What does one do with the nodding acquaintances who leave lasting impressions? The elderly gentleman shuffling along the sidewalk. I had places to go and things to do. He obviously did not. I impatiently side-stepped him. He drew back, a soft namaste, a smile, and then resumed walking. I never saw him again. But, I remember him. I remember the equanimity of a stranger and I stop chasing my own tail. Nodding acquaintance? Perhaps.

The young boy who offered me his seat on a crowded bus in a strange city. I attributed the offer to my grey hair and took it as my due, barely sparing him a glance. It was only when he got down a few stops later that I noticed his crutches. I never saw him again. But I remember the fortitude of a stranger and I stop sweating the small stuff. Nodding acquaintance? Perhaps. 

CAPF jawans guarding government houses in my sector. I would walk by them every morning, frowning at my thoughts, until the day one of the jawans wished me. Surprised, I smiled. A uniform became a person. I look out for him now. Often he has the day’s newspaper in his hands. And I know what the headlines are telling him.  They talk of war and death. I walk on but remember the paper in those hands. And I own my guilt. The war is mine. The death may be his. Nodding acquaintance? Perhaps.  

The traffic cop manning the crossing near my home is a veritable contortionist. His body turns one way, his face another. Only by focusing fiercely on the flowing sway of his hands can one safely pinpoint the exact moment that he signals your turn to move. Maybe it is the sheer intensity of my gaze or my evident enjoyment when I see other commuters as flummoxed as I initially was or maybe it is because I use that crossing at a fixed time every day, but we now recognise one another. A faint smile, a slight inclination of the head, and I drive on while he continues pirouetting. The lights have not been working for the past couple of days. But he was not there yesterday. Nor today. Maybe he won’t be there at all. And I would have lost a time when my day became bright because the lights did not work. Nodding acquaintance? Perhaps.

Sometimes, a nod is all it takes for a definition to turn on its head.