Samir Shukla
By Samir Shukla
The moon is hanging mellow, happy to contribute to this breezy summer night that upended a thick hot day a few hours earlier. The quiet darkness has won this bout, this stillness, this blanket covering all vistas within sight, until the sun pounces back out of the horizon in a few hours looking for a fight.
The midnight hour approaches. This night is meditation and reflection rolled into one. I walk out, sit on the porch of this little house, on this land, beyond the glaring city lights, and become one with the soothing air and gaze at the stars poking tiny holes in the dark, clear sky.
I hear the faint noise of a distant train rolling along to its next destination, warming up those steel tracks while it passes. The darkness will cool the metal tracks once again after the behemoth has passed. The whistle dissipates into the night as the train rumbles along.
Even the train, that clickety clackety iron beast, seems to have quieted its metal cacophony on this stillest of nights.
I remember a similar summer night in western India a few years ago during a visit there. It was another similar night; it may have been even the same exact date. The air that night was heavier, as I sat in a balcony, yet with its own unique stillness. The only thing breaking the silence were the occasional howls and barks of street dogs. The incessant noises of an Indian city had quieted, decided to rest for a few hours, until the blazing sun returned with a bombastic morning chorus.
This night is in the American south, on a farm in one of the rural bands circling the city, replete with a quiet contentment, the air scented with unseen night blooms.
These two nights are separated by 15 summers, and the distance of distant lands, each tacked onto our floating blue marble on either side yet joined in a fraternal summer state of mind.
Right now, in this blackened realm, all noise is subdued. This moment, this presence belongs to the night, wholly, and nothing can breach that feeling.
Maybe the dry air is helping bring clarity. It hasn’t rained for 10 days now, and clouds just don’t seem to want to form. It’s now past midnight, sleep is still not cooperating, the body and the mind are like children, fighting sleep, wanting to stay up all night. Yes, why sleep this perfect night away?
I don’t need dreams tonight; I’m in a sleepless trance. The subtle night sounds float around, change and dissipate and new ones begin. No barking street dogs tonight. This night, the frogs and the crickets around the nearby pond are practicing their nocturnal musical composition.
I nod off for a moment, my mind flies back and forth between that summer night in India and this night in the American south. The space and the years between are one long ethereal trance.
Samir Shukla is the Editor of Saathee Magazine.
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Twitter/X: @ShuklaWrites
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