Faceless...............

The beep and the nick happened at the same time. Quickly intuitively he lifted his face to look in the mirror. It was just a small gash. Hadn't caused much of damage to his good looking face. He smiled at the thought. For someone who couldn't care less, it was surprising that a small gash could matter so much. But then he had guests from office today. Faces did matter.

It was obviously not the barbers fault. When the slight beep was heard on his phone, he had bent his head to check the message. And the barber couldn't quite match the speed and then there was a swish and a gash.

"What is this," he humorously chided the barber. "So you have some kind of a sinister plan to change my face is it"? "You guys take a lot of advantage isn't it that we are totally at the mercy of you guys during this time."

The barber just smiled. He was used to this. Most of his customers spent their time checking out the phone during their weekly visits. Earlier it used to be the papers, now it was the smart phone. Technology had advanced. He wondered if people would soon be confined to just their homes. Thank God he was in this profession. People needed to meet him to at least get their hair cut. That robot thing is yet to catch up in our country. He offered a silent prayer to the photo of a God residing probably in some hidden mountains away from the mere mortals. Even Gods need faces to evoke respect in people.

Amit bent his head again to look at the message. It was a simple Hi,but from an unlisted number. The number did look vaguely familiar but he just couldn't place it. Damn it, why didn't everybody have a personal profile photo, maybe then he would have been able to recognize it. This photo just showed some vague blue waters which could be from any part of the world. He neither had the time nor the patience now to carefully look at the picture, do some analysis, link it to somebody or someplace or write back to that person. He had to rush back home.

After a quick spruce up, he had driven back home just in time to welcome his colleague. "This is Anna", he introduced the new guest to his wife, Simran. "She works in the Mauritius office". "Remember I told you", "one of my colleagues helped me out of that passport fiasco".

Simran cordially smiled back, "of course how could we forget that". "It was one of the most trying times for the entire family here. He was badly required here and to be stranded in some distant country with a passport with a damaged photo. It was hard on all of us."

Anna smiled back. "Oh, you are making a big deal of it. Thankfully I knew somebody in that airlines office. She is a very close friend of mine. We meet quite often. So it wasn't much of trouble. The airlines do tend to make a big deal of the rules sometimes. Any way, I find it intriguing sometimes that our identity depends on a photo with a name attached to it". Those words seemed to cause some kind of an uneasy feeling in Amit’s stomach.

Anna continued: "And of course we all know Amit. How can we not know him? He is the one guy to go to in times of needs. A guy who gets our work done in a jiffy. I mean I had to help him right. Anna, she turned to him, we should have more of those business IT workshops that we had last year. That meeting really sorted out our differences. All the con calls, video calls I mean and all it took was one face to face meeting to get it right. Remember that guy Ravi from Srilanka, I thought he was one of those straight jacketed guys with a very straight face; he turned out to be quite a lively guy you know."

Amit shook his head in agreement. Now he was clearly upset. It was always about known people, or rather known faces. She had helped him because she knew him. He shuddered at the thought of his fate, had he not any friends in that country.

He quickly picked up his phone and replied to the last message he had received from that faceless guy.

Hi, I am sorry, couldn't place you. I do not have your number stored on my phone.

And the beep had sounded back in just a couple of seconds.

Hey, didn't you recognize me, this is Tarun from Delhi. We worked together in Nimbus remember. I am in Pune now. And this time as if on cue the profile photo had changed. Of course he could recognize the face now.....

The faceless picture had now morphed into a very live, very human looking face. No more just a unknown number. And then messages flew back and forth. Addresses were exchanged. A couple of face to face meetings at the coffee shops later, and they were back into each other’s lives again......