Light..and lights
Insomnia seems to have become a permanent friend…but I had a great day yesterday (early morning birding, some torcher, afternoon play and a lovely time with friends) and I am looking forward to my trip to
in a few hours with
and others from the BULBs (Bangalore Urban Lady-Birders…we have co-opted some male members, such as
though!)
I am sitting in the dark with just one goose-necked lamp…and was musing about light and darkness. That darkness is associated with evil both in terms of the lack of colour (making it black) and lack of light. The dispelling of darkness often signifies the dispelling of gloom, despair, and anything not good.
On my way up the stairs in our apartment complex, I found that someone was celebrating a festival unknown to me (probably it was also the Tamizh festival of kArthigai, I don’t know…), they had set up this little shrine outside their home with lights to dispel the darkness:
It was rather unusual to have the puja display outside the home rather than inside it…but it made a warm, appealing picture!
And then, of course, my
Sunset on a daily basis is echoed, in my mind, with the fall season, where the days draw in, there’s a sense of things ripened and replete….”season of mists and fruitfulness”, as Keats puts it. To some people, of course, the lesser amount of light is depressing…but to me, being a person who loves the rains and the monsoon, it’s not of any negative connotation.
“and leaves the world to darkness and to me”, writes the poet Thomas Grey…and the peace of that statement is tinged with melancholy, and the name of the poem is “The Elegy”!
It perhaps takes someone in a tropical country, who bears the harsh sun, to appreciate lack of light, and the dimness and coolness that accompany it.
To me, the fall, the Sisir Ritu, and the evening, are wonderful times.