While sitting in a public space, especially where all or most are sitting and shall be sitting for while, one can succumb to vicious survey. This happens to
people who are old or complicated or conscientious or
lonely enough to feel guilty about or be indifferent to watching attractive men and women, or even
people. So when they casually look around, if their ocular interaction with a man or woman'
s figure in one
corner or end of the space amounts to something more than a glance, they make up for it by looking at the other
corner or end, to establish a lack of interest or curiosity. If that end or corner too holds a man or woman's figure, and the visual moment transcends a glance, then that person would fall into vicious survey. He would not be able to contemplate or concentrate, and would survey the place continuously until the world is desolate again.
Pandu thought he would sit in the
park for a long time, but he yielded to a vicious
survey of the place and had to come back to his room, either out of pain in the neck or
plain disgust, or both.