As night falls...

A bustling place by the day, a town dons a different avatar at night - quieter, darker and deeper than what one would perceive of it in daylight. A blend of romance and realism, a town by night is a phenomenon to reckon with...

Soon after dusk, the dark townscape gets speckled with the bright electric lights illuminating homes and offices, and it is no less marvellous than the sky overhead that is dotted with stars, as though there is an imaginary mirror between the land and the sky, like a river reflecting the adorned sky in its dark water.

The town does remain busy, only in a much subdued way. Now the stations and bus stops wait for the daily commuters - the friendly vegetable seller, the querulous fishmonger, the solemn clerk, the fatigued student, and the lonely vagabond. The look of toil and drudgery is etched on almost every face, as each person prepares to retire to the comfort of one's home. It is reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's Preludes - as if the dying evening is like the burnt-out end of a cigarette, with man bereft of all his strength, waiting for the night's sleep to replenish him. In bars and restaurants, people gorge on greasy edibles, and let their hard beverages desensitize them completely.

As the night rolls by, the statues of famous personalities, spared from the perching of birds, now become witnesses to the humour and pathos of human life. It gets easy to tell which homes are happier - the ones where the families eat together, where friends enjoy live telecasts of sports tournaments with rapt attention, where the old couple sit together, ruminating over their wedding album. The situation gets a little more tense as the diligent student pours over his lessons for the day; the secretary scrutinizes the balance sheet or adds finishing touches to the Power Point presentation. The examinee bites her nails away, struggling to memorize the following day's syllabus. Things turn terrible when the drunken husband returns to the care-worn and silent wife, or the henpecked husband deems it best to look for peace outside his home, taking a stroll perhaps, along the deserted thoroughfares. The romantic lover stealthily clambers upon the Rapunzel-hair rope, praying that no one watches him make his way into his beloved's heart - at least one of his prayers gets answered!

Like Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince, the town-lover's heart goes out to the widowed seamstress, whose shriveled but nimble fingers dexterously weave away, giving shape to the outfit of a happy would-be bride, and to the homeless who lie in peaceful slumber along the dusty pavements.

The moon walks in beauty through the night - the only one who keeps vigil over the dark townscape, watching in silent agony as the unfed child in the slum goes to sleep, wailing and unheeded; the woman employee cautiously boards the office cab for her night shift at the call center. The pariah dogs howl in unison as they sniff a trespasser in their neighbourhood. The last eyelids fall in speedy closure like the tin shutters of the local shops: the subconscious mind enters the realm of dreams. The starved beggar thanks his stars that he had lived for another day, while the spoilt brat wishes he has more to spend and gorge on.

That is when the eyes of the owls, the felines and the flying mammals gleam like flickering lanterns - they are the creatures that work at night, besides human thieves, and a writer who loves the night, for night is the time when all masks are stripped off the faces that take the stage during the day...