THE EYES HAVE IT

When you first meet a person, you look at his/her face and then the eyes lock. An impression is created immediately and more often than not, it is strengthened as you get to know the person further. 'Seeing is believing', but the mystery is that though what we see is the same, our eyes interpret it differently. Someone said, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Very few people see 'eye to eye' unless the trust is so much that one can follow someone with 'eyes wide shut'. 'Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ and what may be 'love at first sight' for one, for most it is just another sight.

Traditionally and in folk lore, eyes have been associated with character. Brown eyes are supposed to be trustworthy, blue-sentimentality, and, green-creativity and mysteriousness. Metaphorically, the colour of eyes is expressive of emotion: red eyes of rage and anger, blue-love and romance, green-jealousy, and black-deceit. There is also the 'evil eye' which could be cast upon with intense jealousy on someone very successful or hugely attractive. And if you wink at a pretty girl, you could land up with a 'black' and 'blue' eye!

Eyes are a popular subject for songs. Titles of most immediately convey what the songs are about. So Frank Sinatra crooned for his loved one, “I only have eyes for you”, Frank Valli was besotted with love in “Can’t take my eyes of you” and the song in the film “Dirty Dancing” had “Hungry eyes” expressing desire.  Other songs are “Sexy eyes”, “Bright eyes”, “Dark eyes” and Bruce Springsteen's "Hey blue eyes". An old favourite of mine is "Beautiful brown eyes" by Rosemary Clooney in which she expresses her love for brown eyes forsaking blue ones.

Al Martino brought in nationality in “Blue Spanish eyes” while the old traditional song gets the heart stolen in “When Irish eyes are smiling”. Some songs have a deeper meaning like The Platters' "Smoke gets in your eyes" where the singer says that when love ends, it feels like smoke gets in your eyes. Perry Como was at his best in the early 50s in the chart topper "Don't let the stars get in your eyes" warning the loved one that in his absence, she should not be naive and let the moon break her heart but keep it for him when he returns. 

Eyes are popular in Hindi songs too. Way back  KL Saigal complained of agony inflicted by “Do naina matware” while more recently, the Bachchans went to town with “Kajra re, kajra re, kajra re torey naina”. Abida Parveen hypnotised us with her inimitable Sufi song “Chhaap tilak sab chheeni, mohse naina milaike” meaning, 'you have taken away my looks, my identity, by engaging eyes with me.' And there is "Chashme baddoor", the '61 hit of Mohd. Rafi that aims to ward off the evil eye from the lover.

Contrary to what Rosemary Clooney sang, there is a story I heard sometime back. On a late night drinking binge at a stag party, an animated discussion was raging about what the colours of eyes signify. Someone said that brown-eyed women are very unfaithful. One man realizing that he did not know the colour of his wife’s eyes rushed home to check. Finding her sleeping in her skimpy nightie in the darkened bedroom, he pulled out a torch and shone it in her eye. “By God, it's brown,” he yelled. A thoroughly distressed and disshelved person crawled out half-clothed from under the bed mumbling, “How did you know I was here?”