Faces

(Portrait of a village elder of a Shoura tribe village in Odisha.)

The touch different, so are the feels

Every face that I see,

Is a life lived differently indeed.

They carry the heaviness that they have endured,

Yet when I meet, it’s a face that warmly greets

(A cattle grazer with a traditional hat made of leaves and bamboo. It also used largely by farmers around here in Odisha.)

You can see the wrinkles, that the hard lives have brought,

Before an age that people around you must have got.

Yet the smiles feel so open,

The air around feels to light to breath.

(Portrait of an old woman of Shoura tribe of Odisha with traditional ornaments)

The faces let me peep into their lives

Maybe the easiest way lies through their eyes.

The clothes and the colors, the voices and the gestures

The boulevard of culture and the traditions.

(Close up of an old-women as the sunlight from the window creates a beautiful contrast with the shadows.)

I see how different even I stand there,

The canvas and its colors that I have over my skin

The things in my pocket or the things in my bag,

How different from theirs, and how differently do I use

Often it’s the shutter that brings me closer,

A click and I show back,

Is when the smiles bloom,

(Portrait of an old women sitting by the porch)

They call to me, every face, differently,

As if an unscripted story craving out to the world

They can hide the pains or their worries,

Behind the curtain of the smiles,

(Portrait of a man with the huge mountain on which their village is situated, in the background)

Some inspire and some remind.

Some comes back to at times.

Looking back to all these faces,

I travel back to the places they belong,

I relieve the moment and their place.

And maybe as the years roll,

These faces will remind me,

Of the stories I have been a part to,

Different yet it is all.

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