Faces

So many of them. Most middle-aged. There are the college-going types, and the work-at-office-and-work-at-home types, the lechs, the gum-chewing ones, the pimpled ones, the taken care of ones, and the neglected ones.

Middle-aged woman stops abruptly in front of me and warmly shakes the hand of a middle-aged guy. Could they be long-lost college mates? Unlikely. There'd have been a pause, and an exclamation. This is most like Saturday club types.

How we like to classify people as this or that type! It is our way of dealing with the unknown. Examine, classify, and file. And then keep coming back to the library. Much as it helps, this tendency of ours has been responsible for some of the worst human tragedies. Orientalism by Edward Said is a study into such tendencies.

Notes on the way to office.