1. The artist I’d commissioned to do a sketch for B’s farewell in 2000 coming charging down the passage in my office to deliver the drawing which he had delayed. At first I could hear his regular tread from afar, but as he realized he was within earshot of my office he literally started sprinting, with feet pounding the floor so I could hear the sprint, in a bizzarre gesture to show how hard he was trying to get it to me in time. Totally weird.
2. Guy in the early days of Dubai’s metro out for a joy ride with family, looking all awkward and new to this whole metro thing. Ticket counter guy asked how many children he had, which he did not understand at first – then when he did he quickly squeezed the cheek of his blank-faced daughter, with a staged tenderness. It was a kind of release from nervous excitement – the primitive “immigration counter” nervousness of dealing with someone unpredictable behind a counter, mixed with the excitement of a boy about to sit on a carnival ride after a long time. Totally peculiar.
3. People meeting you in person and using telephone language like “This is Anoj” or “Khalid here”. Totally weird.
4. Person suffering from hierarchical diffidence, wanting to chat with someone senior without yielding to the impulse to gush with pleasantries…instead sniffing every now and then, with eyes and forehead deliberately unflexed, in an effort to look casually abstracted, as an act of affirming “things are normal, I can handle this”. Totally peculiar.
Notes to Self 
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