A Face to Remember

This is my first attempt at descriptive writing - to be exact-writing purely based on a single object. This is the outcome of an hour of musing in the indoor badminton court at the LH whence we(2nd year BTech & BArch girls 2007) were banished while the third years gave the farewell invitation to the fourth years. The thing once written seemed to be a faint shadow of what I intended it to be, but friends who read it liked it very much. So going by the saying something is better than nothing...

Read this after reading the main part...

Please don't ask the question- 'who is he?'. If you didn't feel like asking, congratulations you are the reader of my dreams. For the others- let me explain... The whole point of writing this was to make you see the person through my eyes. This is not about who he is or what he is as people see him. This is about how I see him. Enjoy the picture I paint and seek not the model lest reality disappoint you...or you feel that I have not done justice by the original...again such opinions are personal. Then again if you wish to be nosy, go straight ahead and welcome.

A Face To Remember

Faces I have seen…many of them - handsome ones, plain ones, innocent ones, grave ones, arrogant ones, servile ones…so many faces… I have always seen a face to a person as a label to a pickle jar – a mere identification device. I never thought there was more to a face than two eyes, a nose and a mouth. I never thought that a face could move one… could inspire… That was before I saw this face.

It is an ordinary face; as most people would see it. I would call it handsome (or once handsome) were it not a crime in the eyes of my peers to call any face above 30 years of age handsome. It is the sort of face you generally associate with someone’s father - bespectacled, with a receding hair line graying at the temples.

I will describe it or attempt to do so. It will be like trying to paint with words; to breathe soul into expressions. I might fail miserably but then I would have tried. If I should never see that face again I would at least have a memory.

Everyone endeavoring to describe a face begins with the eyes and I will be no exception. Kind eyes, tired perhaps but ever twinkling behind the lens of the spectacles. Eyes that have not forgotten they once belonged to a child. Eyes, that forever smile. Not the eyes of a fool with everlasting good humour that makes him the subject of every jest. Much wisdom sits on the brow and many cares have left contours on the forehead that time will not rub away. The eyes still prefer to smile…

The nose I have to admit has nothing to recommend it. Neither straight aristocratic nor aquiline… that feature I admit is rather flat. The chin is firm with determination; not arrogantly square…just firm. Lines of care and laughter alternate around the mouth. A mouth that could probably go very thin in a bout of anger…but I have never seen it so and hope never to. Dimples play on the cheeks when smiles come - often…

The description does not strike me as out of ordinary in black and white. Why is it that I cannot express in their entirety the feelings that inspired me to write this in the first place?

I have seen many faces as I am sure have you. We pass a multitude of them every day of our lives. The face of a stranger cannot inspire… a human face is after all a mask to some. This face has a name and I know the owner well. It may be because I know what really is, that I can wholly appreciate the serenity that adorns this face at all times. It is difficult, almost impossible, to be at peace with the world at all times. People I know; every single one of them have different faces like in some poem I read- an office face, a home face, a visiting face…the faces change with situation. A beaming kindly face turns cruel in an instant; tis but a funny world. The owner of this face has only one face. There are expressions of course but they enhance the emotions rather than create them. Everyone has a bad day once in a while…the creased brow says it all. This face shrugs at the troubles and chooses to smile when it would have been all too easy to frown. I am failing entirely in my purpose so I had better stop.

I would just say, I want to remember this face for ever. When the world throws troubles in my way, when everything goes wrong, when friend turns foe and when tears are near... I will remember the face that smiled through all and feel strong. To see that face is to feel assured that the world can do much to you but you can choose to smile and that choice is entirely yours to make. To see that face is almost like a prayer.