A Time called 'NIGHT'

The sun shines brightly for a change as I sit down in front of the family’s common laptop.

It is a glorious day outside with a slight chilly breeze reminding that it is still the start of January & officially, still winter in the Indian plains. For some this day might signify happiness and joy & maybe some pessimists might consider it as the last day of light before the bleak future sets in, but nevertheless no one can deny that this is a magnificent winter morning.

But alas the philosopher in me is not easily side tracked by such playfulness of nature. In my pursuit of materialistic gains & bodily pleasures, I don’t usually stop to marvel at nature’s artistic talent. I just take in the wonderful surroundings and move on to do whatever I was doing.

Considering the surroundings and my elated state of mind, one might assume that I might be dwelling on something which is bright and maybe holds some promise for the future. Some line of thought which deals with the lighter side of one’s self or atleast won’t have something dark associated with. But as usual my thoughts are directed in a different way altogether, which by the way is duly affected by this bright sunlit day.

The harsh reality, which I’m quite sure has revealed to me only due to this burning sun, struck me across my face that all my creative musings and my spiritual awakenings happen during the late hours of night. My emotional threshold point reaches to its peak only during these dark hours. I fully feel alive at that time only. All my doubts and problems get solved during these ungodly hours. I’m free to think and devise ways to live life on my terms. Make fallback plans for some future endeavor at 2 in the morning. My craving for something non-veg, a little drink, smoking everything starts when the dawn of the devil is happening (Sex is an obvious exception, every guy is and rightly so, ought to be ready for it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year). It is as if my life actually awakens during the night.

So what is my fascination with Night?? Actually what is with everyone’s attraction with Night?? You will always hear about the nightlife of a city, will always be judged by at what time you sleep (even when you are studying late into the night instead of partying for a change), all the greatest of personalities (and I include Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolves, Paris Hilton to name a few) roam in the streets only during ‘when darkness falls’. Mother’s fret over their children because everytime they wake up during the night they finds them well awake. Father’s still play Mt. Vesuvius because their sons are taking the prescribed 5 hours of sleep at 11 in the morning.

My mother always told me I was a nishachar (demon in devanagri). I was a child of the night who used to scream his head off from the window when my neighbors, bless them, were trying to go to bed. I used to be full of unspent energy which surfaced during the night and which I used well to cause mayhem around the house. I was the only child who used to keep wide awake whenever a family gathering was happening and all the adults were getting nostalgic about their childhood. I still love to drive away in the dead of night on the streets of Delhi, still remember the nights when I used to meet my ex-girlfriend under her apartment.

I guess it has to do something with the fact that we spend all our day living for everyone else and it is only during the night that we can unleash the rebel within, hoping that our dark side will be lost in this darkness or maybe it has to do something with the reveal-hide quality of the night which invites us to shed our inhibitions or maybe I’m overcomplicating a simple way of life & it has nothing to do with anything. Whatever might be the actual reason this is for a fact that Night is a special time of everyone’s life, one time or another, irrespective whether it’s a blue full moon night, a half moon yellowish night, or a night of no moon and total darkness, the pull of the cities lights or the charm of the quietness of the dead paths, of both metros or villages, is something no amount of sun can match. For me a dark cloudy day is always much better then a sunny morning.

With time my parents finally understood the fact that I will always have my life in the night but alas they still haven’t come to terms with it. They don’t stop me from partying late into the night but my mom still calls me at 11 to remind me to come back home, with the faint sense of unmistakable hope in her voice that she’ll hear that I’m already on my way. My dear old Dad still sleeps in fits until I return back from my midnight strolls. As for me, I still hope to drink the elixir of night every night and get high.

Night.