Democratic Myanmar is Good For India

Myanmar-in-Transition Opens more Space for India

Myanmar, during the last two years, has undergone many changes of considerable political and strategic significance both for the domestic as well as international audiences. These changes relate to two important aspects – change in the political outlook of the country and change in the dynamic of Myanmar’s engagement with the outside world. Moreover, these changes have been driven primarily by the growing confidence of continuance and consolidation of power within the military leadership and its willingness to engage the outside world.
Change within Myanmar
The change within Myanmar has occurred in two key areas – change in the outlook of the ruling regime and initiatives including politico-constitutional reforms towards national reconciliation. First, the government of the military regime has been replaced by a civilian-looking regime supported by paraphernalia of political and administrative institutions. The new constitution, adopted in 2008, has changed the name of the country from Union of Myanmar to Republic of the Union of Myanmar governed by a bicameral legislature. The political model of Myanmar, in fact, follows quite closely the Indonesian model of Pancasila Democracy under the authoritarian regime of Suharto with both the elected and military-nominated members. The national government is headed by a President. The government, under the new constitution, has also set up various politico-administrative institutions, such as Union
Election Commission, Union Supreme Court, Financial Commission, Constitutional Tribunal, and Union Civil Services Board, to facilitate administrative and governance matters. Second, the government, since the elections in 2010, has taken various reform measures in the direction of gradual political relaxations and greater popular participation in the national political processes. The government has released a few hundred political prisoners in different phases, considered by many as a substantial step towards reforms and democratisation. The government released the leader of National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi in November 2010 and has also allowed her to enter into active politics of the country.
The NLD decided in November 2011 to re-register itself as a political party and Aung San Suu Kyi has decided to join the political process by contesting the by-election under the NLD platform, scheduled to be held in April 2012. The latest step in the direction of national reconciliation came on 13 January 2012 when the national government announced to release more than 300 political prisoners. The national government has taken steps towards greater accommodation of opposition groups. Moreover, the government has also embarked on entering into ceasefire agreements and peace processes with the ethnic insurgent groups.
A democratising Myanmar offers the Indian government a scope for engagement over wide-ranging issues of governance and institution-building. The democratic India remains the largest and best practicing democracy in its vicinity, possessing decades of experience of managing dissent and diversity. Moreover, a democratising Myanmar bridges the gap between India’s normative positions of pro-democracy and its pragmatic approach of constructive engagement with the military leadership. India, despite its engagement with the military-ruled Myanmar, found it difficult to reconcile the domestic support for democratic movements in Myanmar and the strategic imperative of engaging the latter. This reconciliation can allow India to concentrate its resources on developing relations with Naypyidaw. Finally, a democratising Myanmar allows India to tap onto the biggest resource base of engagement – pro-democracy leaders and support groups operating in India. The return of these exiles to their country can further help India strengthen its constituencies within the political leadership of Myanmar.
India can also benefit from the possibility of greater coordination and investment of resources and strategies in combating transnational crimes in India’s northeast, such as armed insurgency, trafficking in drugs, arms and human beings, and illegal cross-border migration. Moreover, the positive changes in Myanmar may reduce the flow of illegal cross-border movement of people that has proved to be an important carrier and conduit of cross-border trafficking in arms and drugs and overall instability along the border.
Myanmar Comes out of Closet
The new leadership has shown willingness to engage the wider world and diversify the avenues of its strategic engagement. The normalisation of political processes has further sped up Naypyidaw’s global and regional rehabilitation. Leaders from various countries, including important global and regional actors, have visited Naypyidaw during the last six months. They have not only welcomed the change taking place in Myanmar’s bodypolitik but also expressed their willingness to lift sanctions, resume aids and assistance, and initiate cooperation over various issues of development and governance. Both the United States and European Union have indicated to lift the sanctions in the wake of reform measures taken under the new leadership of Thein Sein. Moreover, Myanmar will also be taking over as ASEAN Chair in 2014, indicating an important trend towards the country’s regional rehabilitation and growing global recognition of the regime, a process that can further stir up more political reforms in the country.
Myanmar’s growing engagement with the outside world has two important sub-texts – (a) widening horizon of Myanmar’s role as an important factor in the great-power relations, and (b) less pressure on India-Myanmar relations both from the West as well as from China. Myanmar is today regarded as an important variable not only in the Sino-Indian rivalry but also in the Sino-US rivalry. The visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in January 2012 is understood as the US attempt to break into the Chinese sphere of influence as a part of its larger policy of re-asserting supremacy in Asia. On the other hand, Myanmar has shown gradual detachment from its erstwhile patron – China, indicating its desire to diversify its cooperation with other powers.
In the face of growing domestic opposition, the Myanmarese government scrapped the Chinese hydropower project over Myitsone river worth US$3.6 billion. There  is growing resentment within Myanmar’s leadership as well as people against the dynamic of Myanmar-China engagement that can be termed as neo-colonial pattern of resource-extraction by the superior player. Myanmar’s decision to engage the wider world allows more space for India to engage the country. While the West is going to be more reconciliatory of India’s engagement with Myanmar, China will be less wary of Naypyidaw’s engagement with India and more of the growing role of the US in the country.
In other words, India can engage Myanmar more freely and widen the arena of engagement including defence and security cooperation. Nevertheless, the opening up of Myanmar also poses an important challenge to India’s engagement with Myanmar. In the presence of other players, India has to be more attentive to Myanmar’s concerns and proactive in its policy initiatives for bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Otherwise, India might see the strategic space being taken over by other players both from the West as well as the East.

Doutzen Kroes Doutzen Kroes Dances Along To Jessica Rabbit

As Easter weekend gets underway, many are undoubtedly welcoming the end of Lent and anticipating a chocolate feast on Sunday.

But LOVE magazine has chosen to celebrate in a rather unorthodox way- with the help of Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes.

The 27-year-old dances to Jessica Rabbit's famous number Why Don't You Do Right from Disney's 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit in a new video for the website.

Wearing only a black lace suspender set, high heels and a festive pair of white fluffy bunny ears (which she removes halfway through), Doutzen's isn't exactly the most religious tribute to the season.

Festive greetings: Doutzen Kroes is a cheeky Easter Bunny for LOVE magazine Undoubtedly the song choice is a cheeky reference to the Easter Bunny.
The model glances coyly at the camera as she moves, occasionally adjusting her bra strap for dramatic effect.
Lying on the floor and kicking her long legs into the air, there's no doubt that Doutzen is completely aware of her own allure.
Professional touch: The scenes were directed by photographer Daniel Jackson, who has shot for the magazine many times in the past

Tongue in cheek: The 27-year-old dances to Jessica Rabbit's famous number Why Don't You Do Right from Disney's 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit The scenes were shot by photographer Daniel Jackson.
This isn't the first time LOVE magazine has celebrated a holiday in this manner.
Last Christmas the site featured a rather unusual advent calendar, as beauties starred in various videos along a similar theme.
Unorthodox: Doutzen's attire isn't the first thing one might think of when Easter is mentioned Working the camera: Doutzen gazes up seductively from the floor Doutzen got involved in the festive fun, with a video showing her dancing around a Christmas tree to Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Miss Kroes is the fourteenth highest-earning model in the world, thanks to her lucrative contracts with Victoria's Secret, L'Oreal, Calvin Klein and more.
Now that two of her fellow Victoria's Secret models are with child, Doutzen Kroes is definitely at liberty to dispense advice on how to get their bodies back to fighting form post-pregnancy.
Ringing the changes: Doutzen took her bunny ears off for some of the 'dance' It's impossible to tell that just over a year ago she gave birth to her first-born.
The blonde revealed she maintains her stunning figure through a combination of diet and exercise in an interview last year.
'I take really good care of my body,' she said. 'I try to sleep as much as I can, and I go to the gym a lot because my body enjoys a good work out.
Not indulging on Sunday? Doutzen rarely treats herself to chocolate or sweets 'I keep my skin hydrated, and I avoid eating too many sweets or too much chocolate. In any job, you have to give up certain things, and I believe that having a good quality of life means enjoying certain things only in moderation.
'I love my job, and so I could never complain about making these sacrifices.' 
And she clearly enjoys her jet set life as one of the world's top models.

In demand: Miss Kroes is the fourteenth highest-earning model in the world, thanks to her lucrative contracts with Victoria's Secret, L'Oreal, Calvin Klein and more 'It gives me the chance to travel to some amazing places,' she said. 'I really value the fact that we are able to represent different kinds of women from all over the world.'

Khasi Withdrawn From UNESCO''s Languages in Danger List

Shillong, Apr 8 : The Khasi language of Meghalaya has been withdrawn from the UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger as it is now considered as "safe".

The language is spoken by some 900,000 people in the state and is no longer in danger, UNESCO declared on its website yesterday.

Khasi is spoken in the region of the Khasi and Jaintia hills and is also known as Khasia, Khassee, Cossyah or Kyi.

This language of the Mon-Khmer linguistic branch and its status was reassessed by the editorial board of the Atlas, which concluded that Khasi may be classified as "safe" on UNESCO''s scale of language vitality.

Recognized as "associate official language" in the state of Meghalaya since 2005, Khasi is widely used in several domains such as primary and secondary education, radio, television and religion, the UNESCO official website said.

Admitting that "some dialects" of Khasi are "dying" as they make way for the standardized variant, the editorial board said, it was pleased to acknowledge that "the future of this language seems to be assured."

Available in its online version since 2009, the Interactive Atlas is regularly updated based on feedback from linguists and speakers of endangered languages.

To date, the Atlas lists 2473 languages in danger in the world, classified in five degrees of vitality -- vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct.

3 Held For Smuggling Dogs To Mizoram

Agartala, Apr 7 : Villages in Tripura are in a state of panic after rumors of the presence of child and dog lifters in the vicinity spread over the past few days.

Though police have not arrested anyone in connection with child lifting, Gandacherra SDPO Siddhartha Sinha said on Friday three tribal youths were arrested on Tuesday for smuggling dogs to Mizoram and Nagaland.

He added that six dogs - found tied inside sacks - were also rescued from their possession.

The trio were produced before the local court and charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.

They were, however, granted bail but asked not to leave the state. Sinha added that police acted on a tip-off and laid a trap after dogs were reported missing from the area over the past few days.

The youths, who were caught after a massive vehicle check-up, confessed that the dogs had been smuggled to Mizoram or Nagaland at Rs 4000 to Rs 6000 each.

Meanwhile, as many as 11 people were beaten up by the locals and two were hacked to death in five separate incidents in the past fortnight on suspicion of their involvement in child-lifting rackets.

Two such incidents from North Tripura, five from Dhalai district, three from West Tripura and one from South Tripura have been reported in the last two weeks.

"However, no such allegation has been established so far after interrogation," said DIG Nepal Das. Abdul Rupkhan (50), Raj Kumar Chowdhury (60) and Nirmal Sarkar (55), along with their two grand children, were praying at their ancestral land in North Tripura's Manikpur village when the villagers lynched them, mistaking them for child-lifters two week ago, Das added. Rupkhan and Chowdhury died on the spot while Nirmal, who is in critical condition, is undergoing treatment.

Manipur To Get its First IT Park

Imphal, Apr 7 : Manipur is all set to get its first Information Technology (IT) Park that will provide a thrust to IT industry in the region.

Mantriphukri at Imphal is an upcoming IT hub. Hundreds of IT professionals from all across the country will be working here once it is operational. The 27-acre IT Park is part of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Manipur that is being constructed at a cost of Rs 500 crores.

"There are so many boys and girls who are educated in the Information Technology. They got B-tech, M-tech and other qualifications. This will generate employment, a source of livelihood to and also increase the economy of the state," said D S Poonia, Chief Secretary, Manipur.

The SEZ will have a hotel, health and shopping centre, guesthouses as well as serviced apartments so that the employees can work and stay on the premises.

The IT industry is slowly picking up in the state with small companies coming up but there is a serious need of investment from multinational companies to create better opportunities.

As of today, thousands of Manipuri IT professionals are based in different parts of the country, and if the IT park can attract big companies and generate similar job opportunities then many Manipuri IT professionals would prefer to return home.

"A lot of development has taken place in the last year. Earlier there were few IT professionals, but now it has gone up and there is a lot of change taking place. The government is taking a lot of initiative in the field of IT Industry. So it's a good opportunity," said H Kunjeshwor Sharma, Managing Partner, Capital Information Technology, Imphal.

The state government has plans to set up BPO's in the park with the help of private companies. Recently a government team visited Bangalore and studied the IT industry with an aim to implement what it found useful.

"IT Industry can really progress in Manipur, in the long term. We do not need transportation because in IT we send products through connectivity. Government should take up strong initiative because there are many youth who are unemployed and the IT industry can create generate employment," said Naresh, Manager, Extreme Wave.

Prolonged insurgent activities in Manipur have prevented the socio economic and industrial development of the state that has a large human resource pool, which if used optimally can provide a major boost to the economy of the state.

250 Drivers for Delhi Police Were Hired With Fake Licences

New Delhi, Apr 6 : Around 250 people hired by Delhi Police as drivers last year used fake or forged for securing the job, an investigation has revealed. The police have filed five cases and are in and are in the process of registering more First Information Reports (FIRs) as investigations are being carried on, a senior police official said.

In one case, the applicant allegedly forged the licence of a woman in Manipur. Delhi Police had issued advertisements to fill up 676 vacancies of drivers in the rank of Constables in February 2009.

"We provisionally selected 676 drivers subject to verification of their driving licences. However, we found that 250 of them have submitted fake or forged documents. Five cases have been registered and may be, some more will be filed," the official said.

However, he claimed, that they had not joined duty as the verification process was on. "Normally every year during recruitment, we find four to five cases. But in this case, the number is very high," he said.

In the case of Hari Om, the official claimed, he submitted a heavy driving licence from Jammu Kashmir having its validity till December 2014 but during verification it came to light that it was issued in the name of one Nazir Ahmed Kaloo for light vehicles and motorcycles.

Similarly, Deswal allegedly submitted a heavy driving licence issued from Haryana's Gurgaon but an investigation showed that the document was actually issued in Bokaro in Jharkhand.

Jat allegedly produced a licence from Jalandhar in Punjab which was valid till October 2007 only. Further, it was noted that the licence was renewed in Meerut; however, the authorities there denied this.

Lalit Kumar allegedly submitted his driving licence which was actually issued in the name of one Sunil Saxena in Bulandshahr. The document allegedly given by Kumar also showed that the licence was renewed in Firozabad but it was discovered to be false.

The official said Sanjeet Kumar had submitted heavy driving licence issued from Imphal West with validity upto October 2009 but he claimed the verification in Manipur showed that the licence had been forged.
"A show cause notice for cancellation of candidature was served upon him. He submitted a reply pleading that his driving licence is genuine and it should again be verified by the department.

"Accordingly DCP (Crime) was requested to get the verification again by deputing a responsible officer.
The verification report revealed that the driving licence was valid for driving light vehicles with effect from October 2005," the official said.

Since two contradictory reports came, the official said, Special Branch was asked to re-verify the licence.
In its report submitted this February, the Special Branch claimed that the licence was issued in the name of one Geetabli Devi and it was for light motor vehicles.

According to investigations, some of them who submitted the licences were not even aware that the licences were forged as they had paid money to agents but were duped.

Bru Repatriation To Mizoram Starts April 26: Chidambaram

Aizawl, Apr 5 : The long-awaited repatriation of 36,000 tribal refugees, who have been staying for the past 15 years in camps in Tripura after being displaced from their villages in Mizoram, would resume April 26, union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said here Thursday.

“The Mizoram government has identified 669 families, comprising around 3,350 refugees, to be repatriated between April 26 and May 15,” the home minister told reporters.

He said: “Both the chief ministers of Mizoram and Tripura are committed to the repatriation process. The refugees would have to leave the camps in Tripura and come back to their original villages in Mizoram as a part of the repatriation process.”

Chidambaram warned against any attempt to disrupt the process.

Chidambaram, who arrived here Wednesday for discussions on resuming the repatriation of refugees, held meetings with Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, senior officials and Reang tribal leaders to finalise the modalities for repatriation of the migrants.

Accompanied by senior officials including the home ministry’s joint secretary (internal security) Dharmendra Sharma and Border Security Force special director general Arvind Ranjan, the home minister visited Tuipuibari, Damdiai and other Reang tribal-dominated villages in Mamit district in western Mizoram Thursday to see for himself the rehabilitation of Reangs.

Following ethnic tensions after killing of a Mizo forest official in Mizoram, over 41,000 Reang tribal refugees - locally called Bru - had taken shelter in six camps in north Tripura’s Kanchanpur sub-division in October 1997.

A total of 701 tribal families - comprising about 3,585 men, women and children - were sent back last year.

The union home minister also said that 83 Mizo families from Sakhan Hills in Tripura who were affected would also be provided compensation as agreed.

The Mizoram government has been insisting that a rehabilitation package be provided to 83 Mizo families who, according to the state government, had been evicted by the Reang tribals from north Tripura in 1983.

Mizoram’ major NGOs and political parties, including the influential Young Mizo Association (YMA), in a memorandum to the union home minister demanded that the 1995 electoral roll be the basis for determining bonafide residents of Mizoram from among the refugees lodged in Tripura camps.

“Only names of those refugees enlisted in the 1995 electoral rolls of Mizoram and their descendants be repatriated to their villages. This is because large number of Reang tribals from neighbouring states and adjoining Bangladesh could have infiltrated into the refugees’ camps during the past 12 years,” the memorandum said.

On the contrary, the Reang tribals strongly opposed the demand of considering 1995 as the cut-off year for the repatriation of refugees.

The refugees, lodged in six camps in northern Tripura, 180 km north of Agartala, have also organised a massive protest rally Wednesday and submitted a memorandum to the union home minister through the Dasda block development officer in north Tripura.

“All the 36,000 refugees are inhabitants of Mizoram. The Mizo political parties and NGOs are trying to upset the repatriation process by making a new issue of considering 1995 as the cut-off year for the repatriation,” Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF) President A. Sawibunga told IANS by phone from north Tripura.

Chidamabarm had visited Tripura refugee camps, held meetings with the refugee leaders, and Mizoram and Tripura government officials at Kanchanpur in northern Tripura Feb 18.

He also held a meeting with Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, who had requested Chidambaram to take all steps to repatriate the refugees to their homes in Mizoram.

“The long-awaited repatriation of the Reang refugees had resumed April 12 last year, but the process was stopped as most refugees were unwilling to return to their homes without a written assurance from the Mizoram government,” a Tripura government official said in Agartala.

Uncertainty still prevails over whether all the migrants in Tripura would return home, the official added.

Why Men Can't Stop Looking At Women

Why men can't – and shouldn't – stop staring at women

By ian brown

Before we discuss why it is men can't and shouldn't stop looking at women in the street, I'd like to explain about the girl in the miniskirt on the bicycle.

It was the first of the warm spring days that inflated Toronto this week. I was on my way to work on my bicycle. Two blocks from my house, I turned right and found myself 10 feet behind a young woman.

I use the word “behind” hesitantly.

She might have been 20. I am 58. She had long blond hair, and was wearing a short putty-coloured jacket, nude hose – I didn't think anyone wore nude hose any more – and a white miniskirt, trim but straining, tucked primly beneath her.

My first sight of her felt like a light blow to the chest. Her body held my interest, but so did her decision to wear a miniskirt on a bike, along with her youth, her loveliness, even the fleetingness of the six blocks I kept her company – she turned right, and she was gone. We owed each other nothing.

The inevitable backwash of guilt arrived, as all men know it does. I have a daughter her age. I am married but spent several minutes gazing at a pretty girl's backside. I could hear the charges: objectifier, perv, pig, man.

But it was such a beautiful day. And so I decided to spend the rest of it cruising the city, investigating the famous male gaze, to find out just how ashamed we lads ought to feel. These days, with women charging so fast past us, we're happy to feel anything.

***
Details that catch my attention: lively calves, French blue puff skirts with white polka dots, red shoes, dark skin, olive skin, pale skin, lips (various shapes), curly hair (to my surprise). A pretty girl with too much bottom squeezed into her yoga pants – and, mysteriously, twice as sexy for the effort. A slim blond in enormous sunglasses carrying a banana peel as if it were a memo. An expensively dressed and tanned woman climbs out of a taxi, so vivacious I panic and can't look at her. Slim girls, curvy girls; signs of health, hints of quiet style. Coloured headbands. A rollerblader in white short shorts does nothing for me: Her look is the sexual equivalent of shopping at Wal-Mart.

But each woman makes you think, parse her appeal. The busty brunette in her 20s is wearing a rich emerald-green ruffled blouse, but it's sleeveless and obviously not warm enough to wear outside. Is she a bad planner? Would she be a sloppy mate?

I ask a woman sitting in an outdoor café if she minds being looked at by men. Her name is Ali – a 26-year-old student with an Italian boyfriend who looks at everyone. That used to bother her but doesn't any more. “Just looking, I don't think it's offensive. But I think it's offensive if there's comments.”
Every woman I speak to says the same thing, without exception. So why does girl-watching have such a terrible reputation? Maybe because it's an act of rebellion.

***
X meets me for lunch at Ki, a downtown sushi restaurant frequented by brokers and lawyers. A big-time lawyer married to the same woman for three decades, he's father to three children – the opposite of a player. But he, too, spends hours gazing at women. He claims he spots at least two stunners a day. We've been discussing the girl on the bicycle.

“I don't get this complaint that you can't look at an attractive woman who's the same age as your 20-year-old daughter,” X says.

I'm having a hard time concentrating: Ki's waitresses are brain-stopping. Cleavage seems to be the prix fixe. One of them catches me looking at her, and then catches me looking sheepishly away, my store of hope fading the way a car battery dies. But a little bit of shame is good: you can't take your gandering for granted.
“It's because you could be her father,” I finally manage to say.

“Yeah,” X replies. “But you're not.”
He pauses. “I read that 26 is the peak of a woman's sexual attractiveness. I've got a daughter who's 26 – so I can't find someone that age attractive? That strikes me as a creepy argument. Women might not credit that a man can look at someone of that age without lust, but as the father of someone that age, I can.”
X believes men look at attractive women because attractiveness means the women are healthy, an evolutionary advantage.
“That's still seems unfair to the less attractive,” I point out.
“And it bites women a lot harder than it bites men. I'm conscious of it being unfair. But there's nothing I can do about it.”
“We could stop looking.”
“Would that help anything?”
“That's not an answer. Could you stop looking?”
“You'd have to pretty much turn out the lights.”
The trick is to look and keep what you see to yourself.
***
There are people sunning themselves all over downtown Toronto, glades of flesh and sunglasses. Ninety per cent of them are women. It's not as if they're hiding.
On the co-ed-strewn quad of Victoria College at the University of Toronto, I run into K, a businesswoman I know. She's here studying for a night course. She just turned 50, and is still attractive. But she admits looks from men are rarer. “Leering hasn't happened in years,” she adds wistfully. Visiting Italy 20 years ago with friends, “we were furious that the Italian men pinched your bum. When we went back, in our early 40s, we were furious that no one was pinching our bums.” This makes me as sad as it seems to make her.
She points out there is a difference between a look and a leer and disagrees with X's rule that eye contact with a passing woman can last no more than one second.
“Well, I'd say two or three seconds. A lingering look, especially if it's from an Adonis –that's, oooh. And you never see them again. A passing encounter. Or a bus encounter, glances and sidelong looks until one of you gets off the bus? That's the best.”
The first time she stepped out of the library this morning into the quad of semi-clad women, “I thought to myself, oh my god, do you remember what it was like to be able to expose your legs? It wasn't even sexual. But it was liberating.”
This is another thing that made the girl on the bike so appealing: she was free. It would be nice if we all were. Y, a 35-year-old married friend who still flicks his gaze at passing women the way other people flip channels, blames our national earnestness. “The problem for us as men is that we're in the wrong culture, and we're men at the wrong time. We're not a culture that empowers men with casual sensuality.”
He holds up his BlackBerry. “I don't see what's wrong with it. In a world where, thanks to this thing, I am only two clicks away from double penetration and other forms of pornographic nastiness, the act of merely looking at a girl who is naturally pretty – I mean, we should celebrate that.”
***
It's nearly dinnertime when I make my last stop at L'Espresso, an Italian café near my house. Even here, on a quiet patio at the end of the day, I can see five women I want to look at. It's almost, but not quite, exhausting.
Then I notice W and Z at the patio's corner table – the best view in the place. Both men are in their early 60s, both married. They're surprisingly keen to discuss the male gaze.
“Yes, I look at girls still, incessantly and unavoidably,” says W, the taller of the two. He still has a full mane of tossed-back hair. “And it's one of my greatest pleasures in life.”
“I concur,” Z says. Z is shorter, less ephemeral. “But I look and gaze at all women in the street, whether they're beauties or not. They're all interesting. And different men gaze at different women.”
“And what goes through your mind when you look at them?” I ask. “Do you think, would I sleep with her, and what does that say about me?”
“Yes, there is a question,” Z says, “but for me the question as I look at them is a little more modest: Would they sleep with me?”
“Beautiful women are like flowers,” W interjects. “They turn to the sun. But if they don't receive a certain amount of attention, they wither.” The simile has an 18th-century feel, like the conversation: It's about manners, after all, which are always most complicated in times of equality.
“I concur again,” Z says. “The most attractive women expect an attentive gaze that doesn't imply anything other than someone saying, ‘You're attractive enough to gaze at.' And the most rewarding thing is if that gaze is returned.”
“What does a returned glance imply?” I ask.
“It implies, as they say in the New York State lottery: You never know.”
I'm about to leave when Z tosses me a last thought. “Some women assume the male gaze is sinful and hurtful and evil, that men can never look at women in a different way. But that's not what the gaze is about. Because a sophisticated man would not hesitate to gaze, and then he might be filled with regret and loss, and therefore gain self-knowledge.”
Longing makes us sad, but at least it proves we're still alive. Which is why men like spring so much, for the short time it lasts.
Ian Brown is a Globe and Mail feature writer.