The Unknown Man

Suddenly I found myself in this cinema theatre at the back row and it was quite dark and I couldn’t see any of their faces clearly. There was still some time left for the movie to start. My sister was sitting at the right side and to my left I had people whom I was familiar with.
Although I had a rough journey to the cinema, I felt little calmer when I sat down, .I thought to my self, “now I can relax”. The minute I started to feel comfortable, one of them suddenly said, “Can you all move? It is boring to sit like this, we have to mix and sit together”.
It was not bad at all at first, so I moved little further and sat down. However they were not happy still, suddenly they asked my sister to move further to the right and now I found myself sitting with two guys to my right. I felt quite annoyed as I felt my comfort zone was taken away from me. Suddenly I felt like I was sitting in middle of men and in-side I felt suffocated for a second as if all my freedom was taken away from me.

A thought popped into my head, “shall I just move further down and sit on my own?”

I must have said this loud and I drew attention of the two guys from my right side.
Both looked at me at the same time and one of them said, “did you know what we did last time?”

This person, I had met before once and thought he was such a silent person, but right now I experienced a personality change in him. He was more hyperactive and he almost forced himself to act as if he was excited about something. His actions were not natural. I could see it was not really him. Behind the mask of this excitement I felt someone who is little disappointed and sad. Even in the darkness I could see his face, his face looked very tired, it was almost like he didn’t sleep whole night. I had to almost stop myself from reading him. This had become a habit for me these days. I shook my “reading mind” out of myself and again started to pay more attention to my freedom and I.

I noticed myself twisting and turning and I felt as if the seat had become too small to contain me. What a strange feeling? I was sitting in the same seat as before, just because the people I was familiar with had moved away, I started to feel as this new people were invading my privacy. I just wanted to break free and a part of me wanted to strech my legs and hands rest both of my feet on the front seat and but there were people sitting in front of me and I have to give some consideration to them. “Stop thinking in this way, “calm yourself down and act like a girl”. I reminded my mind who I was and reinforced my cultural and spiritual values and I let the mind mull over it while I started to pay more attention to the one who wanted to tell me a story.

Although I was quite annoyed deep inside, I smiled at both and looked like I was very interested in his story. But he didn’t even look at my face or looked for any signs of permission to tell his story. basically dint care whether I was interested or not, he was just going to tell me and I will just have to listen to it.

Without pausing or taking a breath, he said, did you know what he did last time, pointing to the friend who was sitting right next to him?”
Before I could even ask, “what?” he continued, as if he didn’t have time for my whats and hmms … he said, “you know what happened last when we came here?.... we came to the cinema here and the seats were empty and we sat at the back and I was putting my feet on the front chair and there was this man who came and sat down. When he realised my feet over his chair, the man moved to the next one. Then he (his friend was now nodding his head and ready to fill in any details) put his feet on the man's chair.
At this point the story-teller paused and both of them laughed at the same time and probably took couple of deep breaths as well.

Before my mind could even analyse their laughter it quickly moved to have vivid images of the man whom they seemed to have harassed (in my mind). I saw a man who is in his 50s, with few grey hairs. He was sitting down and as he sat down he felt some movement behind his back and realised there was someone sitting at back and putting his feet on his chair. Once he made sense of this, he then moved to the next seat and sat down. He didn’t have any intention to bother anyone at this point. He just wanted to sit quietly and watch the movie. But now he sensed the other pair feet touching his shoulder, he must have lost his patience. He must have felt like a victim of two spoiled youngsters who didn’t have any respect or manners.


Then my mind wandered further and I found myself thinking, “Was he married?” Was he lonely? He came to the cinema on his own and god knows what was his day like before coming into this place, Or did just had a fight with his wife or children so he thought to go out to calm himself down.

Suddenly I found myself saying “Poor him”. “Why did you guys do this? Were you mad or something?”
However they were not at all interested in my comments. For them they were telling me an interesting tale and obviously they knew how I was going to react and they enjoyed every bit of my reactions, but didn’t have time to bother with it. Their story was much more interesting than my reactions, so they continued to tell me in the same fashion without taking any breaths and now they took turns.

Now the other one continued, his face didn’t have any particular expression but if one delved deep into his eyes, one could feel some sort of yearning and a great need to fill an emptiness that was deep inside him.
But he had a tone of a voice that is provoking and teasing in nature. He said, “There were so many seats, why was he sitting in front of us?” I don’t understand. He spoke as if the poor man deserved to be punished for his actions. Then he continued, “the man said, “Remove your feet or I am going to complain” and “I told him off and stressed the fact that I am not going to take off my feet. If you want you can move further down”. He spoke as if he was defending his own territory from an invader. It was almost like an animal instinct, there was no rationale for this.
Suddenly my mind wandered off to survival of the fittest theory and the lectures came to my head as flash backs.
From fruit flies to humankind, it was taken axiomatic that all females mate and become mothers, while among males only the luckiest or most competitive mange to become fathers and there is a great need for male species to defend their territories and compete between males. It is almost inbuilt in men’s brain that they will have to fight for their place, their territory. Suddenly I felt that nature had put too much stress on male species.
Suddenly I had to bring my mind back to what I was listening, “Go and complain then!!! I am not going to remove my feet”. The man apparently left the cinema but never came back. The story ended with laughter again and this time I was not really sure whether it was a nervous laughter or laughter of achievement.
I was trying to speak for the man and I found myself saying, oh poor him… why did you guys do that for? Again both spoke as if they were in right to do this.. They said “he could have gone sat another place” why does he have to sit in-front of us?
“Poor him” I thought and suddenly started to feel for this unknown man who had to leave this theatre after paying for his ticket.

But I somehow forgot that was sitting in middle of men or adolescents or young men. The feeling of suffocation had totally gone. The seat looked bigger and there was enough space for me to feel comfortable. Suddenly I felt good and I thought I am going to sit back and enjoy this movie. That was such a transformation.

Then I looked at them again and saw them in different light.
suddenly I felt like I was sitting with two innocent children, who felt they were right in doing whatever they did. They came to this cinema first and they found comfortable seats and already sitting but this intruder came sat in-front of them and they felt as he was invading their territory. Both of them were telling this story as if someone was trying to take away something that belonged to them. But they didn’t let the intruder invade them. They had won the battle. I saw pride and a sense of achievement and a sense of courage and strength one of them and other was silent, it was almost like he was wondering whether they acted wrong in some ways.
Suddenly story telling stopped and they were both bored or perhaps I didn’t gave them the right exciting level for them to feel entertained and keep it going.
Now they needed something else to entertain themselves rather amuse me with their victory stories.
Without any warning they whistled so lound that I felt as if both of my ear drums were gone. “Ah stop it” I almost shouted at them. Seemed like they didn’t take any notice of me and the movie started and they continued with their whistling and when they saw the female actress, one of them shouted loud, “I love you darrrlinggg” and whistled again.
A part of me was getting upset and was ready to shout at them again, but strangely enough the other part of me felt such compassion towards them and finally I thought to myself, “let them enjoy and have fun before they get entangled into this messy life. Let them feel all the freedom and feel as if they own this world. After all they are still very young and they will make mistakes, learn and make sense of their experiences. AND one day!!! Hopefully they will find meaning in their lives and be joyful in themselves.



P.S: Dedicated to all who came to the movie last sunday. thank you guys:) you were all ANNOYINGLY COOL haha !!!!