10 March 2006

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.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

yeah.. classification, passing judgements and stereotyping.. some of the worst habbits of humans.. but thats the only way evolution has taught us to handle uncertainity

Advaitavedanti said...

Add to that the unfortunate memory that helps classifying, be it wrong. Soon its one's biased viewpoint :)

MomentsOfTruth said...

Good one sihikahi.. Can't agree more with Praveen or Sham..!
This inveterate need to pass judgement and classify and divide
ppl into 'sections ', often without the benefit of a deeper perspective, tends to result in a myopic vision and can continue to endure as a shallow outlook as praveen points out.

Vijayalaxmi Hegde said...

Praveen: Oh yes, memory... the other bane of human existence

jugni said...

i have that in my course at college... edward said.
very interesting post. :)