The hour before dusk

There is something magical, as well, about that familiar hour before dusk. A different kind of a magic than dawn, subtler and often unnoticed. A magic that's lost too often in the fatigue of late afternoons, in the deceptive tubelight of a closed room, in the anticipation of the evening or in the hurry of wrapping up the day. Remember that William Davies poem titled "Leisure" that everyone probably read sometime in school?
What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare

Those lines come back to mind sometimes, and sometimes give birth to beautiful moments on a relatively hustle-free afternoon like today. So, I was in CP for lunch with an old friend who's in India for a few days. Final year of college, despite a few specific stresses, comes with a luxury of being able to take an afternoon off for whatever you want, for practically doing nothing practically whenever you want. So I called it an early weekend in the afternoon, and went to CP, met my friend, chatted and ate and finally said goodbye and started to walk back. What started as a walk around the inner circle slowly changed into a brisk one around half the outer circle, and a leisurely one along Janpath. It felt so good, that I did not feel like stopping or hailing a bus or auto just yet.

And so I walked, keenly watching everyone around. People shopping, people talking, people in a hurry, tired people, angry people, a stray smile, a beautiful admiring gaze, people nodding their heads to the music in their car, cyclists guiding themselves through a swarming crowd of pedestrians, mobile phone ringtones, the melody of noisy BlueLine bus conductors' bangs, the napping security guard, the child holding her mother's suit walking behind her so as to not get lost, yet lost already in a world far, far away, the wailing hungry child, the tense conversation on the phone, the rush to run, the slow walk of old age, the 2 ruppee peanuts, the sleepy shopkeepers. I watched em all, and I walked. At one point, I wanted to take pictures, but then, not everything should be constricted to a 2-dimensional image. The memory, albeit decaying with time, serves well alongwith my imagination that can do a new job every time I come back to these posts and read these words. :)

The weather is brilliant these days, the slight chill warming up a smile to every heart. That walk felt so fulfilling, with random thoughts straying in and out of mind, and leaving behind peace. The thrill of stopping to buy a raw guava and enjoy it slowly, the thrill to watch the world go by even as time stops mattering. There was no hurry to reach anywhere, no work urgently awaiting me, and lots of talking I needed to do with myself, so even after walking a few kms I just sat down at a bus stop watching the sun and the trees, not looking at the buses stopping by, until finally the silence was satisfactory and it was time to come back.

At some level there was nothing spectacular about the hour, or what I did. The day continued to be good with some other friends turning up even after I was back. But at yet another, that hour was sublime. Not with an envelope of darkness dissolving the dirt, but with a radiance of life making it feel good anyway. Healing not with the antidote, but with the smile. Beautiful.

A magic, sadly, lost way too often.