The Art of Noticing

I think I have a habit of noticing things.

Not important things, unfortunately. Ask me where I left something five minutes ago and we might have a problem. But put me in a coffee shop for twenty minutes and I will probably know which couple is fighting, which auntie has been waiting too long for her kopi, and which two people are pretending they do not like each other.

I don’t even do it intentionally. I just notice.

There is something very interesting about the small things people do when they are not trying to make a point. Someone can tell you that they care about you, but I am more interested in whether they remember that one random thing you told them weeks ago. Someone can insist that you are “just friends,” but somehow they remember your birthday, your favourite song, what makes you laugh, your morning routine with rock songs and the ridiculous joke you told them at 2am. Someone can give you a name that only they call you, play old Tamil songs when you are together and remember details you did not even remember telling them.

And immediately my brain goes, “Hmm. This is nice.”

This is also where being observant becomes mildly dangerous, because Tamil movies have absolutely not helped us.

We grew up watching people stare at each other for six minutes while A.R. Rahman played somewhere in the background, and somehow we were expected to understand that an entire love story had just happened. Mani Ratnam could put two people on opposite sides of a railway platform and suddenly all of us would know that they were in love, emotionally unavailable and probably about to make several terrible decisions.

Then there is 96, which basically taught an entire generation that two people can sit across from each other, barely touch and still emotionally destroy everyone watching.

So naturally, when somebody plays an old TMS song while having a drink and looks quietly pleased that you know it too, a tiny part of your brain goes, “Ah. Cinema.”

Reality, unfortunately, does not come with background music or a storyboard.

Sometimes a song is just a song. Sometimes a man is just drinking. And sometimes you really are sitting there wondering why somebody who apparently notices everything about you still cannot notice that you are always the one initiating.

That is the less romantic part of the art of noticing.

You begin to realise that noticing is not only about catching the sweet things. It is also about noticing the absence of them. You notice that somebody remembers the smallest details about you but rarely asks when they can see you next. You notice that when you are together, there is warmth, chemistry, conversation and familiarity, but once you walk away, there is deafening silence. You notice that you can spend hours talking about life, work, family, music and absolutely nothing, yet still somehow walk away wondering where you stand.

At some point, you also start noticing yourself, which might be the most uncomfortable part of all.

You notice how many excuses you are capable of creating for another human being when you like them. Maybe he is busy. Maybe he is tired. Maybe he is introverted. Maybe he does not like texting. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde. Maybe God himself confiscated his phone.

Eventually, even I have to laugh, because there is a fine line between being perceptive and writing an entire screenplay around somebody else’s behaviour.

And I think getting older has taught me the difference.

Noticing is not the same as overanalysing. Overanalysing takes one moment and tries to turn it into a conclusion. Noticing waits. It watches what happens again and again. One late reply means nothing, but a pattern eventually tells you something. One affectionate moment does not automatically mean love either, but neither should we pretend human beings feel nothing simply because they never gave us a perfectly worded declaration.

People are complicated like that. Somebody can care about you and still not know how to show up for you. There can be affection without readiness, familiarity without commitment and chemistry without consistency. Something can be real and still never become anything more than what it was.

And strangely, I don’t think that makes it meaningless.

I think Tamil movies get that part right too. Not every meaningful relationship needs a giant declaration in the rain or someone running through an airport at the last possible second crying, “Brother, I already got someone.” Sometimes all you are left with is a song that sounds slightly different now, a road you remember for no particular reason, an inside joke that would make absolutely no sense to anybody else, or a nickname that belonged to a very specific time in your life.

Maybe that is the thing about people. They leave things behind without even realising it.

And once you start noticing that, you realise it happens everywhere, not just in romance.

My sister asking whether I have eaten is sometimes just my sister asking whether I have eaten, but sometimes I know she is really checking whether I am okay. A friend sends me an Instagram reel with absolutely no context because apparently that is now a legitimate modern love language. A stranger sees you running towards the lift and holds it open for you.

Nobody thinks these moments are significant while they are happening. Nobody goes home and writes in their diary, “Today, a man held the lift for me and humanity was restored.”

Although depending on the day I have had, I might.

But I think that is what I like about the art of noticing. It makes ordinary life feel a little less ordinary.

There is always something happening if you actually look around. An elderly couple sharing one plate of food without speaking much. A parent fixing their child’s hair at the bus stop. Someone trying not to smile while reading a message. A dog walking a few steps ahead and then turning around to make sure its person is still there.

That one always gets me.

Maybe we miss a lot of these things because we are waiting for life to be obvious. We expect the important moments to arrive looking important. We expect love to announce itself, endings to explain themselves and people to tell us exactly what we mean to them.

Most of the time, they don’t.

Sometimes you understand because somebody remembers your coffee order. Sometimes you understand because they stopped asking to see you. Sometimes you understand because your friend sends you the funniest reel you have ever seen at exactly the right time.

And sometimes you understand absolutely nothing, which I suppose is also part of being alive.

I don’t think noticing gives us all the answers. If anything, it has probably created more questions for me over the years. But it has made my world much more interesting.

People are funny. They are confusing, affectionate, inconsistent, generous, awkward and occasionally very bad at communicating. Yet somehow, without meaning to, they leave little traces of themselves with us. In the things they remember and the things they forget. In who they look for when they enter a room. In the way they randomly start singing and look at you. In the message they send because something reminded them of you. In the way they make space for you. Sometimes, even in their prayers.

And maybe that is the beauty of noticing. You start to see how much of life happens quietly, in moments that would be very easy to miss if you were not paying attention. Not everything needs to become a story or mean something bigger. Sometimes it is enough to simply catch the moment while it is there.

A look. A joke. A small act of kindness. A song.

The world has always been full of these things. I think I just like being someone who notices them.

And since Tamil cinema has already trained me to give everything a soundtrack anyway…

Cue “Kaalangalil Aval Vasantham.”