A canvas in the sky...

An early morning chill, a bird and a cigarette... is what it takes, for me to pull my socked feet out of the soft quilt and start thinking, I began to pace my tiny room, often knocking my knees into the bed's foot...or the odd crunching sound beneath my chappals, of something that I had no interest in finding out. I'm searching clumsily for a matchbox or a lighter, or anything I can light my darned cigarette with. Shivering slightly, I brush around unimportant space fillers inside the only drawer that I own, wondering why I have so many things I don't need. I make a mental note to clear out the junk later at a more sensible time, and then I find a matchbox with three sticks left in it. I sigh... just my luck. But anyway, I strike the tiny stick on the box, and my room is suddenly lit with a golden glow... I light my cigarette, and take a long slow drag. The poisonous smoke fills my lungs in an instant. It feels good. It feels like the end of a over-stretched movie, that is not even that good but you must sit through for some reason.

It is still quite dark outside, although there are signs of the oncoming dawn, in the slowly reddening Eastern horizon. I get a clear and direct view of this from my window, but for not even once had I considered pushing the curtains away to get a glimpse. I don't know why, I just never did. Turning to my bed, I see Billu, the cat that stays with me when I'm in my room, sleeping cuddled in a fluffy ball of purring bliss. Somehow I don't want to stir her air, and decide to head for the terrace. Holding the cigarette carefully between my lips, I put on my trademark Adidas jacket, that people are so weary of and complain as being the only thing I'm seen in post November chill. Well, with the winter in these parts, I could not care less about being fashionably clad. So, on comes my blue jacket, and I grab a bottle of water on my way out, and bolt the door loosely from outside. The sting in the air is sudden, like a gush of cold air during the onset of monsoon, it doesn't stay long, but long enough to wake every inch of exposed skin.

The mirror at the end of the corridor shines like a mercury slab, and as I get closer it forms a blurry shape that looks like me. I avoid it, and walk towards the staircase that leads to the terrace at the end of fifteen steps. An odd count, for a particularly unused set of stairs. As I reach the top, there is a fresh cool, awaiting me in an unabashed lingering stoic. Its dark here, there are no halogens to curb the dense darkness that engulfs me. I wait for a moment, as the darkness slowly turns to half visibility, I enter the open. Small steps take me over the labyrinthine mesh of internet cables strewn all over the place, with tufts of weed growing out of lifeless concrete. I take a last drag and stab out the fading glow of my cigarette. It lapses, wasted and used, into the shadows lapping around my feet. I move on, without emotions. Passing through the jungle of dead leaves, peacock feathers, I found myself a spot atop the water reservoir, up a small rickety and rusty ladder.

The night is already turning to a purple haze, and there are golden streaks creeping towards that oblivious horizon. Under my seat, a damp cement parapet, there is a thin column of stalactite, formed from the dripping of over-flowing tank water. The sound of the droplets sometimes reaches my ears, on nights quite this this. Tonight its dry, there is no water to spare. I reach out and touch the strange shape, it breaks and falls in my outstretched palm. I bring it closer. It feels like sand, and smells like moldy ice from the back of the freezer. I let it fall, and wipe my hand on my checkered pajamas. Suddenly there is a rush of cold that sweeps against my face like a wave of ice cold water. I clutch my jacket and pull my legs closer into a more fetal crouch. It feels warmer instantly.

I look out into the night. It feels like I am perched on the highest tower of the city, looking over, like a guardian angel, or like a bad omen waiting to fall on a bleak destiny. I feel like a bird of prey, waiting for morning to break, to fly away in search of the amaranthine. I feel like a pirate on his lookout, searching for another ship to break out of the horizon. I feel like God, looking down on earth. The city looks asleep, it seems in a deep slumber, unaware of my plans. It is peaceful, so are the hearts beating in its serpentine alleys.

The sky is curiously splashed with colours now. There are patches of blood red, but mostly a pinkish glow underrates the yellows and blues that are slowly morphing into the canvas, like the muse of an eccentric artist. I'm overwhelmed at its beauty, at the sheer simplicity of this mundane celebration of timeless phenomena. Although I now believe that each dawn is different from another, like every person is different from the other although we are all of the same flesh, blood and sinew.

A peacock caws very close by. I'm jolted out of my misty subconscious. I stare at the brightening dawn and stand up on the concrete mass ragged by dried moss, remnants of a distant monsoon. I see a few lone souls, running into the foggy span of the road, by my hostel building. The climb down is dizzy, but I manage. I walk back to my room, feeling very different. The thoughts in my head are different, away from my refuge of sarcasm, I feel heavy with a strange feeling. I realise I'm homesick. I have never experienced what I just did, back home. I open my room, Billu looks up curiously. Did she miss me? Did she know I was gone? I pat the top of her head, open my jacket, and curl right back to sleep, with a tiny tear feeling its way down my nose.