Sea of faces ~ UBC 17

Green T shirts are back in vogue, I thought. The middle aged gentleman walking briskly towards me did not appear to be conscious of the funny look he sported in that green outfit. Perhaps he would have been inspired by the boy I saw yesterday, who did look good in a similar colored T shirt. Swinging his arms in a weird manner there passed another gentleman whom I did not see for quite a few days. The lady who used to accompany him always took the route opposite him on her rounds in their morning walk in the stadium. She walked erect and without any specific movements or rather she glided along. There comes one of the group of women whom I see everyday, chit chatting away as they stroll past me. I wonder if this regimen of theirs would do any good to their physique, true that it would satisfy their souls.

 

Young girls walk past briskly as if putting the older ones to shame. Some men of a certain neighborhood walk together talking so loudly that when they turn the bend others know which faces to anticipate meeting! Slow walkers give way to the faster ones who in turn acknowledge and move on. There are a few couples I meet on many days. Some walk quietly side by side, some walk and talk so intensely and intimately that one would get a feeling that they are short of privacy at home. Siblings vie with one another to pep up their speed and walk along faster than the other. Many lone walkers like me go along perhaps observing the rest.

 

Fatigue is writ large on some of the faces exercising on the sides of the stadium. Joggers dodge the walkers and meander their way through them. The round stadium is witness to a large number of people doing rounds clockwise and anti clockwise everyday. Little kids have their skating practices on one part of the stadium. College students gear up for a game of football. Elder men and women try their hands at a game of badminton in another portion of the stadium.

 

My music plugged into my ears I take quick rounds of the stadium, as fast as I can walk. These are the faces I see regularly. I do not know who they are, where they live or what they do. Its just that I meet them regularly, a smile, a nod or a wave of the hand mark acknowledgement by some of them. The chirping of the early birds out to catch their worms, the rising sun, pleasant breeze, smell of fresh air all add up to the sound of the music playing in my ears to kick-start a wonderful day.