Faces

In between the sporadic bursts Between the heckling customers The intimidating bosses The gossiping colleagues In between the drudgery and monotony I doodle faces on bits of paper.

Faces of men and women Full face and left profile – I have grown up with these people Though they remained the same - Adults passing through youth.

From behind notebooks, inside novels Corners of text books and on pages left blank - From every possible piece of paper These Picasso profiles stare up at my face.

Most of my women are beautiful; They all have full lips Wide-eyed with long lashes Wearing Bindis and ear-studs Hair wavy, they all glance Off-centre, over my shoulders- Rare are the ones who look into my eyes.

Men mostly sport a moustache Thick eyebrows, thin-lipped Pleasant to look at but - Grim and somehow sorrowful.

They all are so familiar Though none like another.

Doodling, I brood over my men and women. Are they the ones Who come in my dreams? Are they the ones from my lives past – Or the lives yet to live through? Are they the shadows I sense, flitting behind me? Are they, the unknown and strange Souls I see in my own self?