The Face

This was how I started my journey on that day. I walked along the banks of river when sun was playing hide and seek behind gray clouds. The contrast was quick. Sometimes the light struck the blue water, making sprinkles, and sometimes the water appeared dark. Oh! it is the drama of nature, I realized. But, it had an association with me. Something was there that was binding this drama with me. Whenever the light, bright light, touched the first layer of billowing water, it took me back, back to those images of past. Colors, faces, expressions, moments, and that life; it knocked my consciousness. I saw myself in the same room, with many humans of my age, I was very young then; I was 15.

My much-preferred place, near a window, opened the view of gushing river. The fast flowing brown water, small boats moving along its crests and troughs, and that wooden bridge, I only watched. Then one day, a face passed by and blocked the river; I never knew it would be blocked forever. From then onwards, I forgot the river, and remembered the face, the beautiful face with almond shaped eyes: its rims darken with kohl, and deep inside the shimmer describing the intensity of love, for me, perhaps. My memories immersed in those eyes, so did the river. But then, I found a contrast. For me, it was beautiful, for them, it was ugly. They called it arrogance and I called it innocence. “How could one be so arrogant?,” they would say. “It is no arrogance, it is innocence” I would reply. Never did I remember that distance, or, the ways of maintaining that distance. I was ignored, and that deliberate distance was an excuse, but it was no excuse, I know. So, time moved on, life moved on, and I didn’t stop at all. I laughed, I smiled, and sometimes I fought my tears and acted brave; I lived with the images, the images of one face.

The evening was cold. The sun was behind the thick blankets of clouds, gone for three months of vacation. But the white snow had simonized the road. The road was long and empty. On both the sides the leafless trees of different families and sizes, wearing thick layers of snow, stood guard. This is life, my life, I realized in the depths of the hazel eyes. The snow gave warmth, it acted as a caring host, my buddy: snow, and my love: the face with hazel eyes, what a life, I thought. I shared my beautiful secret with my buddy. I told him that this is love. “I am in love,” I whispered. “You are my love,” I said it, loudly, finally. The fog came down, snaking through the mountains, sneaking through the trees, touching my face, and perhaps kissing it too. Is this a dream? I asked myself in my dream. I was dreaming in my dream. Dreaming in dreams becomes a reality, I believe. One day I will see the face, in the snow, on the same road, and the trees will stand guard, I know.