the in between time

Twilight

The time is in between. It has always been the time that links day and night, bright and dark, white and black. The in between time... Twilight time…

when people and sparrows begin their journey home… they are in between too… not at work… not home yet… coz everyone here lives 'far far' away… transition time… to put it clinically...

and to not to put it clinically, this sepia yellow light that just takes over everything, roads, skies, sea, traffic, people, trees... it has strange qualities… that it is romantic is established from scores of poems that talk about this time… but why do these moments make one restless… I can't sit at home around this time… can't sleep, can't read, can't be alone, can't be together, can't be this and can't be that…

but sometimes am on marine drive watching the sky play with sunrays and shadows and watching the sea taking it all in… and there are many taking a slice of this with them… many don't (there is many for everything here, na?)... in buses, in trains, on the roads as they restlessly take the journey home… soon it becomes dark…

the street lights start lighting up when it is only half dark…like a punctual, rather, just-before-time-this-is-my-first-job employee… they come on one by one… carefully, like a well mannered queue at a bus stop…
gracefully - allowing each one to light well, see the ocean and take a bow, so that the next one in line doesn't hog the attention the previous one would have got, like when aspiring-but- not-aggressive junior artists introduce themselves at an audition...

and then the sky lets the street light become the centre of attention, it becomes dark, the sea tries to become invisible letting “the queen's necklace” perform, except for it's mild waves which are lost in the traffic honks…only an occasional bird with my kind of sense of direction is circling around, sometimes worried, sometimes not…

the moment is over in no time… before you know it is night… before you know you have ended the day… before you know you have missed the moment... before you know you forgot…that the journey, the twilight, the in-between was beautiful too…

skies were vying for your attention while you ran for the train, bus, coz there were people, children, unclean rooms, half-cooked meals, last-minute-touches presentations, demanding the same you far more aggressively…

will we hurriedly sleep-walk though life and miss the play of colours? will we enjoy the journey and not just “yo-i-did-it” joy (or the “phew” of thank-god-i-made-it) of reaching the destination?

the bright blue skies now slowly turn into twilight colours, and that beautiful restless quivery moment slides onto the city, the waves, the trains, the crowds…there is going to be a huge traffic jam and I’ll watch a mad bird circling around as day becomes night…

dil bhii bujhaa ho shaam kii parachhaa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n

ahmed faraz

dil bhii bujhaa ho shaam kii parachhaa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n
mar jaa_iye jo aise me.n tanhaa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n
aa.Nkho.n kii surKh lahar hai mauj-e-suparadagii
ye kyaa zaruur hai ke ab anga.Daa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n
har husn-e-saadaa lau na dil me.n utar sakaa
kuchh to mizaaj-e-yaar me.n geharaa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n
duniyaa ke tazakire to tabiyat hii le bujhe
baat us kii ho to phir suKhan aaraa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n
pahale pahal kaa ishq abhii yaad hai 'Faraz'
dil Khud ye chaahataa hai ke rusvaa_iyaa.N bhii ho.n