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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
February 27, 2013
I have a face that changes dramatically according to the situation. I have little control over these changes so that doesn't stop them doing the dirty on me. For example, if I take you to a restaurant and wish to impress you with my tangible presence and social clout, my face will simply disappear and the stewards, through no fault of their own, will glide past me, ignoring my passionate pleas to take our order. You cannot blame them, what can they do if they cannot see you.
By the same token, if there is someone I wish to avoid, my face will promptly go into its stereo and 3D image so that it will stand out as clearly as a hologram in a dark room full of people and be immediately spotted. Ah, Vohra, just the person I was looking for...
When I see a policeman on the road my face immediately goes into its guilty image. There is no reason for it, it just does it and there I am, sitting in the car absolutely sure that I fit the image of the person they most wish to capture. And they are going to pull me over and say, at last, got you!!
See me walk through Customs at an airport…guilt rains down my face, I have that wily, suspish look, it just sort of grows onto me.
Not so long ago we were sitting in a nightclub in London playing Roulette and a man next to me, a total stranger, lost his wallet. There were nine people and the croupier at the table. Eight of them and the croupier looked straight at me. I tried to rationalize that it was because I was the only colored at the table and this was just another ho hum case of racial prejudice hut it is not true. It was my face. It dripped guilt, forming huge big droplets of the stuff as it went into its 'ideal for the role' mode. A few minutes later, when the silly man had found his silly wallet under the chair he was very apologetic and I had to comfort him that it had nothing to do with him, it was my face.
The danger with people like myself is that if we were ever in a pickle or a hot spot and were trying to prove our innocence our faces would go into the fourth gear of conspiracy and all over the world people would say, he looks the type, whatever the type is.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and a former Editor of Khaleej Times, Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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