The Night Beckons Me...

A Night Out!!! That's what waking long hours into the night is defined here by most of us in BITS. It is probably one of the most integral parts of spending your student life here...waking through all unearthly hours of the night, interspersed with regular midnight rendevouz to the All Night Canteen (ANC) and a liberal dose of full time 'masti' and 'dhamaal' (for the non-Hindi people out there, you could use the alternative words - fun and frolic - though they wouldn't convey the full meaning)...BITsian night outs are, well, just a part of the BITsian culture.

But it isn't just about these things, is it? For if it was, what would the difference between the day and the night be? Wouldn't the night be just as bright and welcoming as the day? Where then would the fear of the night...the dark...perpetrated through the days of childhood...go?

The dark is fascinating enough...But especially on these nights when midnight wandering becomes a custom, it assumes a more holistic meaning...

Never have I felt the pulse of life so strongly as I have during these nights, whether it be during my trips to ANC or during one of my sojourns to the temple lawns in the middle of the night. Ironic isn't it that I should be feeling the pulse of life at the precise time when the whole world is seemingly consigned to hours of dreams and pleasant slumber? Yet that feeling exists. It is as if the long labours of the whole day have come to fruition for each and every living being around and even as they sleep, the feeling of having earned the night's rest...the feeling of having done something productive during the hours of light...contributes to a whole sphere of serenity that descends upon the world as the hours of the night pass but which inexplicably passes on as soon as the first rays of light penetrate the gloom of the dark.

The night is dark...it is black...but doesn't black assimilate all other colours that it encounters without preference or so much as a second thought?

The night does the same for me...It makes my heart soar at the thought of another day well spent...it makes my mind look forward to the promise of another day approaching...but above all...it beckons me...to feel its serenity and dark splendour...unlike anything else I could find on this planet.