Sauntering Down Lanes - Late Night Musings: A Lyrical Essay

I have always longed to experience the placidity of the late hours following dusk. There’s something quietly magical about the night’s stillness. It’s not caused merely by the near-absence of roaring engines that race down heated roads. It’s not just because the noisy throngs of commoners have turned indoors to drift into anxious slumbering and the Indian Sun has gone down to spare the dwellers of this land from sweat. The serenity of the night is more than a regular respite from the loathing heat and the daily groaning towards work, responsibility and the mundane. It’s a time, when nature takes centre stage to heal. 

I stood there feeling the Night,

Her eerie quiet echoing loudly.

Whispering were gentle rays, silver threads of Moonlight.

Hesitant was she to leave me, holding me warmly.

The Walk

I walked down the lanes of my residence, trying to drink her potion of peace, an antidote to the everyday venomous chaos we surround ourselves with. In attempts to suit the requirements of worldly living, we often lose our sacred sentience of calm, letting the most frivolous of things shake us. Then, we ironically run everywhere but within in a quest to ‘discover’ that silence, as though it were always somewhere out there. It’s absolutely beautiful to long for places that help us connect with our forgotten inner tranquil. But believing that the place is peace personified would only make you attached to that space. And, you would once again commence the self-creation of the whirlwind of inner clutter and disorientation, that you had come to the place, to ‘escape’ from. Of course, certain spaces have the prowess of transformative capacity to pull you to unlock the long-forgotten chest, comprising gems of ecstatic self-alignment. However, mental equipoise can also be achieved in the most unsettling of traffic jams. The only prerequisite being the willingness to tap into self-awareness. If successful, even the shabbiest of spaces can become portals to heightened inner-receptivity; receptivity to the soft voice of the conscience that only seeks to guide.

Around me were contorted structures in black,

The blanket of dark blackened the trees lifeless.

A sudden squall stormed me back,

Wispy clouds veiled the Moon, rendering me speechless.

The squall, I knew, was the Night’s no,

The oaks that breathe secrets aren’t lifeless.

The starry sky meant their healing, readying to glow,

To balm man-inflicted lacerations on trunks priceless.

A Thought

As I walked absorbed in thought, something struck my mind. 

I should simply cultivate presence; presence of my mind in the present, soaking the aesthetic around me, and not in the distant narrow trails toward the future; nor the lingering shadows of the past. Let me be here, now.

The phrasing may sound fancy, but unfortunately, this is the only way I could express the sublime intuition that had grounded me in the (then) Now.

The Walk Continues

It had rained a while ago, and so the roads of tar had shallow puddles of water all over. It was silently stunning yet profoundly moving to look at the reflection of the dark grey overcast in the sky. Oh, how I wish I could spot the stars and name the constellations! It is sometimes difficult to explain how much I cherish the ancient, as though I’ve always belonged to the lost chronicles of the distant past, embodying the archetype of an insignificant wanderer. 

A Simple Realisation

In the seemingly eternal silence, the monotone of my footsteps, pressing against drenched pebbles and the wet earth, sounded loud. Escaping the present for a moment, I was reminded that perhaps, we are all on a relentless journey of remembering what it means to be; an attempt to instill meaning in the respective trajectories of life we have partially carved for ourselves. 

Her enigmatic air blowing from lands unknown

soothe warped wounds in a time unmanned.

Her celestial aura heals humans too, not trees alone,

Embrace her with open arms all-hearted, for she slips like sand.

I suddenly stopped. I strongly felt as though my identity had merged with the quietude around. It had dissolved. The ephemeralness of this moment seemed eternal before I could hear a laughing crowd of people approaching from the distance. I fretted at the thought that often we’re so affected by the presence of people around us that we’re forced to alter ways of being that feel individually natural. To present a façade socially acceptable, we go the extent of losing ourselves in the process. Unfortunately, I had to move on, before they drew closer, to prevent any unsolicited judgement. I often wonder, the act of slowing down and sometimes just doing nothing, has become so uncommon, that it draws suspicious eyes, condescending eyebrows, and a spiteful look of scorn. As though, there’s something wrong. Being idle to absorb the moment as it is, is looked upon as an unproductive use of time. Or that you had nothing useful enough to do.

The Ending is but a Beginning 

After having spent a great deal of time outdoors, it was time to return to the four concrete walls of human habitation, away from the quiet miracles of nature. I had to lend some time to nature to heal itself at the hands of the night too. 

The unmanned forest is but crowded with trees,

Lores the whispering shadows sanguinely sing,

Harsh tales of summer, bleak winter’s bellowing breeze,

All endured, thanks to the nights – the renewal they bring.

The walk may have ended, by the journey had just begun.

Gaurav Chandra Tuli