The serpentine lane!

The view from my bedroom is very soothing during the day. There is this serpentine lane which sort-of bumps into my house before taking a sharp 90-degree right turn.

From morning the road becomes busy - people go to office, horns of school buses to pick up children, the garbage-van blowing his horn, some pet-lovers taking their dogs out for a morning walk, the maids, the milkman with the jingling sound of the aluminium cans, the newspaper man distributing newspapers - throwing newspapers upto the second and third floor from the road with spot-on accuracy...the road is so full of activity!

At night, my beautiful lane becomes so grim and sombre. From evening itself the lane begins to show changes in its activity and complexion. Right in front of my bedroom window a halogen light glows brightly. A few metres away, another one. And then another. The lanes is bathed in golden light from evening to the wee hours of the night. When its midnight, there is hardly any passer-by. Couple of stray dogs bark either for no reason or by the occassional sight of some passer-by. Sometimes the typical sound of auto-rickshaws or some two or four wheelers from some far-away distances can be heard. The world is asleep. I look behind. My daughter is in deep sleep after playing and running around the whole day. She is one and a half years old. My wife is also asleep, tired from her hectic office schedule.

But there is something inexplicable that is keeping me awake. It may be the yearning to talk to myself and be alone with myself. It may be the constant flow of bitter-sweet memories of the past that keeps flowing in, especially when I see this silent lane. It may be the thoughts of a loner, thoughts of a confused soul, thoughts that are too close to my heart, which I cant share with anyone on this planet, because no one will understand them. It may be my tears that come out when everybody around is asleep. It may be renewing my friendship with the stars and the moon, that we all hardly pay attention to in the era of sky-scrappers and neon lights.It may be my endevour to dive deep into myself and try to discover more of myself.

The clock ticks past midnight. I say to myself that I have to go to bed now. Tomorrow I have to go to office. Another day awaits for me. That will be followed by another night. Same like that of tonight. Let me keep some thoughts for tomorrow night as well. My eye lids become heavy. Though I would much rather sit by the window and stare almost aimlessly outside, I ultimately had to call it a day.

I shut down my laptop.