Raju Korti
“Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it’s heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
All that is dark is not bleak!
As Nature marches on relentlessly -- taking its own course -- and the fatigued day recedes and relapses into a quiescent night, idyll takes over. Its the time you can hear grass grow and flowers bloom, their heady fragrant blende permeating the ambience. Nocturnal bliss is fortified by the gentle zephyr that regains its lost chastity and Hope revives in the dreamless strut to another dawn.
Somewhere in the midst of this seamless advance, creativity takes over. Living daylights beaten, inventive finesse begins to grapple with meandering thoughts to give them a semblance of substance.
The silence is deafening but also lends itself to profundity for the Evil and Sinless. The line between sinister and benevolence gets shrouded enough to be seductive. For, nights are also made for torture, reflection and savouring solitude. A Dostoyevski comes up with "The darker the night, the brighter the stars." The eyes, closed or open, make the difference. The Bronte-ian reverie lights up with “I love the silent hour of night, for blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes.” "If melancholy are the sounds on a winter night", it is the possibility of darkness that makes the day so bright. Nature is a great leveler. Isn't the sky is very much in place during the night as it is during the day?
Down on Earth, insomniacs scramble to make a virtue out of sleeplessness. For those retiring early, the night is a short, passing sojourn for yet another day of bedlam. The battle between Peace and Strife is also a game of hide and seek of a few hours of clockwork. But the periodic sounds of crickets and gnats set to the background music of the Dark make for a more harmonious sonata.
And your enlightened soul realizes sleep is but a luxury that you cannot afford.
The Longfellow Effect:
“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away.”
stands out visible and stark in the blindness around.
Night might be a time of rigor, but it is also one of mercy. Many truths manifest in the Dark so what if the Moon gets coffined by the clouds. The world courts respite in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Night-time is womb-time. The souls break free and come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day!
PS: Don't exercise too much over this gibberish. The allure of the esoteric can be irresistible at times.
“Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it’s heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
As Nature marches on relentlessly -- taking its own course -- and the fatigued day recedes and relapses into a quiescent night, idyll takes over. Its the time you can hear grass grow and flowers bloom, their heady fragrant blende permeating the ambience. Nocturnal bliss is fortified by the gentle zephyr that regains its lost chastity and Hope revives in the dreamless strut to another dawn.
Somewhere in the midst of this seamless advance, creativity takes over. Living daylights beaten, inventive finesse begins to grapple with meandering thoughts to give them a semblance of substance.
The silence is deafening but also lends itself to profundity for the Evil and Sinless. The line between sinister and benevolence gets shrouded enough to be seductive. For, nights are also made for torture, reflection and savouring solitude. A Dostoyevski comes up with "The darker the night, the brighter the stars." The eyes, closed or open, make the difference. The Bronte-ian reverie lights up with “I love the silent hour of night, for blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes.” "If melancholy are the sounds on a winter night", it is the possibility of darkness that makes the day so bright. Nature is a great leveler. Isn't the sky is very much in place during the night as it is during the day?
Down on Earth, insomniacs scramble to make a virtue out of sleeplessness. For those retiring early, the night is a short, passing sojourn for yet another day of bedlam. The battle between Peace and Strife is also a game of hide and seek of a few hours of clockwork. But the periodic sounds of crickets and gnats set to the background music of the Dark make for a more harmonious sonata.
And your enlightened soul realizes sleep is but a luxury that you cannot afford.
The Longfellow Effect:
“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away.”
stands out visible and stark in the blindness around.
Night might be a time of rigor, but it is also one of mercy. Many truths manifest in the Dark so what if the Moon gets coffined by the clouds. The world courts respite in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Night-time is womb-time. The souls break free and come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day!
PS: Don't exercise too much over this gibberish. The allure of the esoteric can be irresistible at times.
raju garu - till now since i have been reading your blogs, your language was simple and beckoned novices like me to place their simple comments. this particular blog " Don of the Night " is so heavily laden with a minefield of words frequently needing a dictionary, i felt, under these circumstances, it was indeed a good bouncer you bowled which turned out into a beamer by the time it passed by my face, i tried to hook the ball over third man for a six but the ball dipped and it was so foxy that i got caught plumb by the wicket keeper to my own shock and dis belief. under the dubious circumstances i lost total understanding of the contents in the blog itself and unable to say anything.
ReplyDeletewarm regards
ramesh narain kurpad
Ramesh Sir, if you have read the Post Script, as I think you have, you will have just smiled and let it pass. It was just a literary essay making out a positive case for Nights. Most people believe nights are meant for ghosts, criminals, reptiles and other predatory animals. :)
ReplyDeleteCaptain ..I was totally lost until I found the Post Script :)
ReplyDeleteDeepti, I repeat for your sake. It was just an attempt at writing literary essay. How much I succeeded you tell me. Thanks for the read. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteTurgidity never enthralled me- I prefer simplicity so that I don't have to put undue pressure on my limited mental faculties or whatever is there instead.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very detail oriented thinking. This is very good. This reminds me of Nirad C Chaudari ( The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian ). There is a lot of potential for this type of writing, this is very intellectual. If you can pick one emotion and write on it, you could come up with good substance for animation movies.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes.