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What's the most enjoyable activity that you did recently?
I was scheduled to work on an full night shift starting at eight in the night, the journey ending at 8 in the morning. The 12 hour is tantamount to a long drive on a highway. What I usually keep myself to occupy on a 12 hour stay awake period.
Initially I didn't have much choice but to work on the night, but you ask me now, I will jump in and grab the opportunity. You can get to a lot of stuffs @ night. When you start @ 8 in the night, it is more or less that of a typical morning at office. You start reading all the official mails, see the scheduled task for the day, keep all the forwarded mails unread, to have a glimpse at them when you feel like you want a break. Reply to some of the thread mails that is floating around just to let people know that you too are in the loop and give a detailed fight back at a later point of time as the day goes. If you are working night shift at on site location, another wonderful thing that can happen is you will be in sync with your home town happening, meet all your friends online, have a casual chat through out the day, read the morning news :p, stay abreast with the Indian markets, and end of the day you also don't get out of sync with the American Standard time as well since you physically live here.
So the night starts setting in and you kind of be busy getting transition from the previous shift employee and you never know what happens in the initial hours of work. One look it was 8 in your clock, watch it again, it is three hours past. You see 11. As soon as your eyes set on 11, the image just drips down to your stomach and Ting, an exclamation mark comes above your head which slowly turns into apples/juice/Hot food.
Duty to the stomach comes first, if you are working from home, adding more to the scene, you open the fridge, and you see problem of plenty, you don't know which to eat. Grab one of each take it to your place, spread it beside you and every 15 minutes, a back ground job runs in your stomach :P. If you are stuck up at office in the night, well thats a pretty bad situation I say, you will be hungy for the entire 12 hours, I don't know why, but that's how you end feeling.
And so the fourth hour sets in, by this time, you would have ended up doing the most critical or the deliverable task of the day, so time to check all the forwarded mails and reply to all the threaded mails floating around. Time flies by when you do this. Midnight. BIG SMILE :D Welcome to the wonderful world where you don't know what the hell is going on.
No reasons, I see 12 in the night, any time a sense of joy flows through. I love when others are all asleep, when the entire world around you sleeps and you are awake, this is something which I always liked about. At home I wasn't able to enjoy the loneliness of the night because my parents give a strange stare but still I would get up after everybody gets into a sleep after which they don't get up, I go to the terrace and enjoy the scenic beauty. ( Don' think I am putting any kadalai. That's not the case.)
You know what it takes to feel good, those moments I have always felt good and better. No Past , No Future, No Problems, Just the Night. Some how you get this vision of clouds moving very faster at night, the very far sound of late night songs going on in sun tv, there is some other soul out there watching TV. There is tungsten light glowing at a distance, there you see the boy next door studying busily. School days, I used to do the same. Studying late night has always been my choice. I step above my water tank and lay down on that and watch the skies, I go asleep for minutes, then I wake up in a panic and decide to hit the bed. I always wanted to take the bike and horn at my friends place and take him along for a early morning ride, but I didn't want to surprise my parents not being in the bed sleeping. So I go back to bed.
The same night during my hostel days, well late into the mid night when going for a stroll,passing from one block to block, the most weirdest of all things ,to happen at night, is best found inside a hostel. People trying to whirl around circles of smoke, trying harder, people crying, those sexy I love yous over the phone, you watch them and walk as if you heard nothing, those studious fellow with always spectacles on scrapping his paper off to solve the never understandable problem, snoring fellows on the verandah with legs on the parapet, head upside down, even Batman could take a lesson from him, pass across the common bathroom, vomit all over the floor, 2 poor fellows who went along with the gang, cleaning them, laughing to each other. Come down the stairs, there must bound to be a hostel dog in every hostel, barking at you the first moment and then I don't know it somehow waves its tail and starts the journey with you. You walk , walk, go all across the blocks, some in groups, some in loneliness, the music inside your walk man just keeps getting better, I bet, Illayaraja songs are the best to hear after midnight before the dawn sets out. In hostel even at 2 AM, you can see 75% of the lights switched off, but as the clock ticks to 4 AM, you will see a beautiful arrangements of light , lights switched on and off in a random fashion. Gosh, I didn't have a camera at that point of time. After a quick journey when you go back to your room by around 5AM, there you see your energetic friend all dressed up in sports good walking briskly towards the ground for a new start. Watching him go around the ground gasping for breadth from the fourth floor having a warm tea in the cold weather is like.......
Dawn, this is the time of the day I love to be awake all through my life, to see the first light of the beautiful day is the most amazing thing in the world I say. Azhage Eraikaiye...
To see the transformations from a evening to the faded night to the pitch dark and to the smoky dawn out there where in the light tries to creep itself reaching the soil and then brighten itself, the most scenic thing which I have ever enjoyed.
At chennai, there have been times where I have woke up at 4 AM in the morning, take my bike and drive through the cold, teeth withering, hands hardly pressing the clutch, I go to the beach and start running.
( Beach and Running are all together 2 different things which separately deserve a post). At that point of time too,you can see a hell a lot of people, the days starts very early for them. You start running slowly with the beach side by, cool salty wind blowing on your face, its just feel natural to run, no force. Slowly you see the night fading away and the dawn comes in giving birth to the light of the day, WOW, this scene in a beach is even more beautiful than watching the same from your room window or in a hostel.Oh I miss marinaaaaaaaaaaa beach.
You can watch the same dawn while travelling. During college days while returning to chennai from coimbatore, cheran Express gave me an opportunity to feel the same, when all the passengers sleep tight, even the TTR shuts himself down, open the door and sit down on the steps, watching the trees whizzing all through the day, seeing the dawn with chill speed air on your face and ear and that is what I call dulcet. I can go on telling the beautiful pleasantness I have had on night life, but I stop here, I prefer you ask me in person,I love to talk.
Here I am sitting beside my window missing hometown and waiting for the dawn to come in minutes :) and this post is as well getting posted at dawn time. After staying the full night awake, enjoying the loneliness around you and when the world starts to awake, sun yawning and rising itself, you give a yawn back and hit the bed, the most sound sleep you will ever have.
What's the most enjoyable activity that you did recently? If someone renders me the same question, without any second thoughts, I would say staying awake the whole night, does it sound crazy :O, well try for once then you know the beauty of it.
Nilave Nilave, Mugam Kattum Pavaiye...
Eravai Alagakkum illamaiye
what a pleasant song. look for the expressions of the female in red, towards the end at around 3:!5 , 3:2!. and in the end. WOW. enna oru Nalinam. Fell in Love :P
Labels: Loneliness, Nature, Night, Peace
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