The night saga

Nights are slow, painful, disdainful, scornful and yet peaceful, romantic, lonely, private, like a kingdom where one rules, like a garden where one plays, like a canvas where one paints, like one's own territory. There is something excruciatingly beautiful about nights. It instills the fear of unknown and provides the charm of adventure. It glamourises the twinkle of stars which we miss in the glory of the sun. It offers apprehensions to take the next step further, yet injects that confidence to probably do that one thing one always wanted to do. It takes the civilization out of the practised behaviourism, unleashes the brutal spontaneity of passions underlying the skins of animals.



Ask the romantics, they would die to live a night with their beloved ones! The beams of the moonlight, sieved through the leaves of the old gulmohar tree, falling on the most beautiful face in the universe and you sitting a foot apart, probably a little closer than that, devoid of anything even remotely associated with lust, gaze in total admiration, in total awe, wondering if you could hold this moment forever, if you could ask the globe to stop revolving, if you could manage to freeze everything for ages? A tiny precious little drop of dew, still in its childhood, falls upon your fingers. You come out of this dream of yours and realize that all your thoughts are mere thoughts. You realize that if you keep realizing and analyzing just like this, you would miss the vibrance of the bubble you made. So you give rest to your mind and allow the heart to take it over. You look towards her, her eyes are closed. There is a definite serenity and clamness on her face. You put your hand on hers. She smiles, still keeping her eyes closed. You love every bit of it. You shift your weight towards her and she leans on your shoulder. Her locks falling on your chest, eyes still closed, she is in total peace! You want to close your eyes too, but you choose not to. Rather you keep looking like you can see only for that moment and never again. You encounter serendipity, love, affection, emotion, a charge, a voice unheard, a satisfaction you never had before. This is what a night does for you!



A bunch of folks walk down the road. They are in a mood only they can be. It's past mid night already but they don't care for nights are where they belong. Nocturnality is their second nature. They are the kings of the empty roads, looks like all the street lamps are there to greet the great procession. They climb up the bridge and scale to its middle point. They lean from the sidewalls and shout their names to the world, a moment of authority, a moment where you feel like GOD, a moment where you have the courage of a lion and charisma of indian cheetah. Even the frustrations have the power of the "black snake moan". Probably, they are high on dutch courage, probably not! They look around and find the glistening black in the flow of the river beneath. They look for their reflections but their eyes can barely see, they want to script their names on this ungainly world, but only can hear it back! They are quite indistinguishable from each other, they are a mob. Night is their hood and the darkness is their mask. When the birds start chirping, they disappear, like the mist in the summer mornings. They seek shelter and go to the vampire land and out they come in the nights. The night saves them, gives them a fake promise, a pseudo support, an (anonymous) identity.




Down the street, in some obscure corner of the town, she lived. She had a kid. She was a mother. In those dark nights, when the moon and the electricity department both joined hands to darken her small but neat "kholi", "the little one"(to be read contextually ;)) would turn around, trying to find her. He was nervous when on the first touch he found the bed and not her. He would keep his eyes closed and try again, with an increased radius this time, only to find the corner of her sari. The same corner which had been chewed in an endless fashion by him. The threads of the "pico" had been turned soft with his saliva and teeth. The darkness didn't let him see it and the fear of darkness didn't let him open his eyes, but the touch of that torn, softened corner, the feel of his own saliva on it which was left only a couple of hours ago, spared him the torture. She turned, whispered in his ears. He opened his eyes to find her. In the backdrop of black, he witnessed the most assuring and loving face of his life. He dragged his body and somehow managed to reach the familiarity of comfort. The clarity of forth, sometimes, is attributed to the intensity of the back!



The glory and charm of the day might be mighty enough but the honesty of night is underlined by the fact that it offers us the truth, in whatever meanings, some pleasing, some provoking, some soothing, some disturbing, some hollow ones, some sound ones........Matter of fact, they(nights) simply are the agents of unleashment(Allow me the liberty!)