Nishachar, Nightcrawler or a Nocturnal Adventurer, how shall I describe you ?
Night, that certain period of time that symbolizes the unknown and mysterious, often co-related with darkness, occult, sub-conscious, depression, sleep, endings and of course death. As a kid I used to be scared of the dark and to a certain degree scared of night time as well. It involved giving up of your consciousness, a period of time when you let your sense sleep, undoubtedly making you the most vulnerable for those eight nine hours of slumber. The sharpest of minds and strongest of muscles rendered useless leaving only your instinct awake.
Last night as I sat with a couple of my friends on the side walks of a metropolitan lifestyle,I was back to my thoughts of childhood. I looked at the sky above to be sure it was dark, dark enough to bring back that scary feeling that night has fallen and it's time to rush home. I stared for a complete minute only to realize that it is only a shade lighter than bottle full of chelpark ink.
The month of march blew a cool breeze, while we talked about the funniest nonsensical things we ever could. We saw people walking in a hurried manner to be at places they feel they need to be when night falls, some catching autos and some heading to the hottest nightclubs or just for a quite dinner in a "family" restaurant.
Amongst the sprinkles of humanity we three sat there staring at the amazing amount of activity which was so continuous that it almost seemed stagnant, sitting there I felt more a part of the city rather than the bustling crowd that lives in it. I felt like a brick in the wall watching people pass by in the darkness of the night, the same night which now evoked thoughts so different from my childhood. I could feel that I had embraced the silence of the night, the deep purple blue of the sky, the stillness of our shadows cast by night lights, the cool wind like a small kid wanting to be friends with us since we wouldn't run away. All I wanted to do was sit under that open sky and stare into the empty nothing, the quietness of the night filled me with life unlike the lifelessness that reigns supreme during the so called "day time" filled with "bustling activity".
Around 10 years back I crossed a certain age barrier that signed off my immaturity as a personality trait and thus turned a complete blind eye to the fact that the age barrier itself might be misplaced. Having crossed the barrier of being a "grown up", the limits of my nocturnal ventures have uniformly increased over time which I believe is the case with everyone. Driving back home late in the night and strolling through the darkness has become a part of me, a part of me that this night accepts unconditionally, like a generous stranger it offers shelter from the trivial trials and tribulations of day to day life.
I drove back home last night and then walked from the parking to my house and all of a sudden I found myself staring into the sky again just to spend a few seconds more in ironically what seemed like the most lively and yet the most peaceful hours of the whole day.
We will all strive for it one day, to spend the night awake and the day sleeping, call it human nature or biological evolution, one day we'll have had enough with the consciousness of day light and then we'll choose to live in the sub-conscious of a dark night.
One day closed eyes will reveal to us more than our eyes have for the last millions years.
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