Chapter XVIII: The Dark Is Light Enough

One of the handful advantages of living in a village is that it gives you space. To breathe. To ruminate. To absorb. To be. After a mind-numbing day at the office and fearing getting buried under the rubble of "busy life", I usually go for a stroll with restless thoughts waiting to be extracted, like pearls from an oyster. 

Most of my meaningless meanderings have been around night time. There's something absolutely enigmatic about it. About the disdained darkness. About the mystique surrounding the Dark. The Night represents the Dark. It smoothens the kinks the Day accentuates, blurs all the rough edges. Under the blanket of darkness, many levities are accommodated, multiple details bent. It diminishes the Day's vividness, it gobbles up its vivacity and morphs into something serene, tranquil and calm. The calmness only contested by the bats' failure at finding the branch they'd head-stand mid-air on. The calmness reassured by the breathy humming of insects consumed by the dark.

The Night is also a thief. It steals the Sky's colour from the Day's palette. The magnificent Light Blue. But it is smarter. Like any plagiarist, it tweaks it up a little. Makes it darker. Bolder. More azure. The Stars are the splatters of protest the Day puts when the Night comes crawling in trying to filch the latter's identity; they are the white lines, the broken pieces and the pictures found on the crime scene; the reticent witness of the amusing storm. Infinitesimal Yellows on the wide Dark Blue. 

The Night has an array of characters seeking recognition, expecting that nod of acceptance, awaiting their meaning be unfurled, like words of an old Ghazal. For example, there are fireflies that envy the stars. They want to be like them. Twinkling. Yellow. To hold the onlookers in awe. They fly behind bushes in the dark, glowing. Like incinerated on will. Even the trees sing another tune. The blue moonlight anoints the burns they bear all day. It heals their hurt. It fixes what the day defiled. Its soft touch makes them gay. Makes them sway. Thus the breeze is born.

The Moon is the Night's accomplice; it's a trap to make you fall in love, to surrender to its glory.

The Moon is just like a woman: Unstable. Indecisive. Uncertain. Ever-changing. How else would you justify its not sticking to one shape? Insanely experimental? Attention seeking? Overly moody? Ask it why and without batting its celestial-eyelid, it will blame it all on the Earth's Rotation Cycle and then angrily disappear for a few nights, fuming. Poof! Will go mum. Awaiting apologies. Until the admirers learn a lesson. Until their audacity is burnt to ashes. Until the realization dawns.

The Moon's light sieves its way through the Clouds (that float drunk on beauty). The Clouds are adrift on a mission of their own. They are what every man can relate the most to. Despite their numerous attempts to do good, they are dismissed as cold, uncaring and heartless. All this time they only intended to conceal the Moon's blemishes. The flaws they know, but wish others not to see. So they flow over the Moon, like mastered fingers on a golden harp emanating a heavenly sound. Adding more beauty and meaning to a gorgeous night. 

The Moon's intolerance is like a woman's too. According to it, every night is a Vegas show. It cannot stomach the Clouds hogging the limelight; it cannot digest the blockage; it cannot share the praise. Because that is what it survives on. Nobody ever sings anthems about how the Clouds multiplied the Taj Mahal's beauty, because that is what the Moon does impeccably. It's its territory and encroachments infuriate it. So the Cloud's intentions, however non-malevolent, mean a giant naught. The Wise-cum-Lone Pole Star eyes the Moon's dismissal of the coquettish Clouds. I wonder if that's the reason why it chose to settle much farther from the ever moaning Moon?

Soon the Sun would wake and it would then be the Dark's appointed time. All the drama would evaporate. But no matter how many times the Sun rises, no matters what wattage of light bulbs you aglow, the Dark has set its royal throne. Inside. For good. Don't be afraid. The Dark is as crucial as its antagonist. Be in the Dark with eyes wide open. Let it rob that glint from your eyes, take a dip in its stillness. But do not let it unhook you from your virtues. Hold on to them and look underneath the rubble of destructive memories, of distorted thoughts, of disturbing musings and find your saviour. It'll be right there! Waiting to be exhumed. To be resurrected. You have to dwell in that darkness, to finally see the light. Light wouldn't mean much if you've never interred yourself in the dark at least once.

The Dark flows through each corner, growing bigger, under every leaf, in every furrow, between all crevices. On anything that welcomes it. An indisputable conquest. Just like its rival, the Day's. Both of them brimming with greed to fill the world, like poison spreads in the veins. The Dusk unleashes the Dark. The Dark, like a hungry hyena, swallows every lux of luminosity; it bites and chews every sliver of that fleshy piercing light. Until the brightness is buried. Until only the Dark prevails. But soon it'd be the Sun's turn. It's a game of Snakes and Ladders. The Day clambers a ladder, the Night is stung by the serpent and when the Night progresses up, the Day has venomous fangs stuck in its neck.

Who doesn't have a few skeletons in their closet? No one is unstained, not one soul pristine. No pure white. The Dark is a part of everybody. It's a shade of grey. And it is quite alright.

"If you don't have any shadows, you are not standing in the light. " 

The mistakes you make mark you on the right path. It may be your darkest. But it is all yours. Yours to claim. Yours to erase. So hold grounds. Revel in it and the aftermath. Absorb it like a sponge. You falter because you got your hands on something not meant for you. Let the Dark be that optimizing force. Let it show you what is odd. Let it reflect the things you would never want to dig teeth in again. Begin to like the Darkness. Let loose and let it drive you to light. It will. It will drive you to the tunnel's end. Gradually. But you will have to be inside the tunnel first!