Good Night 2 – Along came night

“Good night? Ah! No, the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite”



Midnight was the time.

As the December wind had stopped blowing, the farthest fraction of P. Avenue remained still, and dark. The lone neems and eucalyptuses fervoured by the night fog kept themselves mysterious. The old Ganges flowing nearby was all quiet. December fog also affected the same for a curtain of white clouding was seen on it. The deep dark water of the river remained stagnant till its deep, where traces of life found their way somewhere. And the pale moon continued to hover against those heavy clouds – the weather was not good, even there was a forecast of a heavy downpour - but nevertheless, the silence was on. The city was into their sleep, or somehow trying to do so.


A white owl moved from its nest of the far-off tree towards the only open window of a high-rise building, with its glistening off-white feathers in the moonlight. As it flew, its eyes continued to burn in the dark. It came closer, and then took a sharp turn from the window producing a sharp, shrill cry. And as the cold wind began to flow, the cry rode on it to be spread into the corners of the city. The night had been disturbed for the first time. Moreover, it shoved the boy sitting in the lone room for a while.


The cool breeze, blowing off the curtains of the room, tilting the branches of the trees nearby, vanished somewhere. The nature was revealing itself, vainly to the sleepy people of the city, save only the boy – shaken from a deep thought by the sudden shrill cry of the owl.

It was not new to him. For over four years, almost every night the silence has been broken by that very owl. The breeze takes the cry from Peary Avenue to his colony. He remains awake, and wonders, what would she be doing now.


He remembered about the night four years ago, when the owl cried for the first time. It was when he was writing his diary that night. It was one of those times when he wanted darkness, he wanted silence. The local bastiwallas, the chhatim tree in his neighbourhood, the condition of his bedroom – everything came out on that diary. And at the end of writing, he explored something for the first time in his life. He had made something extraordinary. It was his first story written when he was eighteen.


But four years have passed after that night, and he can see through his window…as every night, the moon had already covered half the distance of the sky. It was past midnight, nature showed him that.


People told him to follow omens. They got detached, he and that girl. But he followed omens. He tried to understand what does it really mean to follow our heart. What does it really mean to ask ourselves who we are, or what are we here for. He engaged himself in reading spiritual books and in search of his own, only by searching for her.

And the next four years he kept searching for her in every narrow lane, every high-rise building in the place she lived. The natural beauty of the lake place awoke his soul. It gave him an inner sight to see everything in our lives by another approach. Times came in his life when he found himself sitting in the lake place watching the evening trains to come in and pass by…the reflection of the neon light from the coupes in the water of the lake kept his eyes fixed in it, as he kept losing himself in the world of unknown, only to return to the memories of a girl he loved, and lost for no reason. The girl he was searching for over four years now.



The doors opened now, silently and suddenly, and his mother entered into the room.
She didn’t have any question. She looked at him and turned her face to the other side. One of the reasons for that was, she had observed some changes in the behaviour of her son, knowing fully that for the first time in his life he was trying to get something from the very core of his heart.


She took up the book resting on his table and a short folded paper fell from its position. She took it up, read it and looked at him.

“What is it?” she asked in a casual voice.

“An address.” He replied.

“Whose?” this time there was a curious note attached to the tone.

“You know her. She is Pallabi.”


And then the room fell silent. One thing was for sure about this silence, had it fallen some years ago, he could have told a few more things. But tonight, there he was, silent at each moment, but answering a thousand questions raising from his life. The omens had taken him to the Alchemist he was searching for, to the Zahir he was obsessed about. The kind of life he fancied to live.


The doors were shut. And the room was silent and dark again. But only this time, he was trying to get rid of those. Loneliness was no more his companion. Because just three feet away from him, it was his love resting in the form of an address. After four years he had found her. He could feel the presence of her, in his room, on the bed, beside him…


It’s true that one of her distant, old friends gave that address. But it’s not who, but how that matters. And for getting that address he had to approach and talk to hundreds of people who came across her, and at last he got what he was searching for. It showed him what does it really mean to follow our heart.



He stood up and went in front of the window. It was cold outside. Night had covered the whole colony under its sheet. The smell of the chhatim flowers kept coming from the neighbourhood in the silent dark night. And then he clenched the railings of the windows with his fingers and muttered something.


There wasn’t any sound out there. And he liked the way the words he muttered reached to his own ears. Because for the first time, he was saying that.



“I am coming Pallabi, for you.” He said.








- October '10