Discovering the other side of midnight

SANDEEP SINHA

IT was a scene to remember. On Tuesday night, 2.15 am to be precise, a young boy and girl on a bike, suddenly stopped at the Sector 20/30 light point. The road was deserted on the cold winter night. The two got down and the girl broke into a dance with gay abandon while the boy clicked pictures of her with his mobile phone and perhaps made videos too. Their vigour and joy was infectious and lifted the spirit. The street dance was unexpected but the night seemed cosy after this heart-warming sight.

How different can the city be at night? The humdrum of daily existence, the rush, chaos, the chasing of routine, commotion—all make the city look so different during the day. On a winter night, the city can appear so different. Taking Sukhna Path from Dakshin Marg, one could see not just the 20/30 light point, but even the roundabout further ahead so clearly that it made one nostalgic about the days when the bifocals did not sit on my nose rim and I had a clear 6X6 vision. Slightly ahead was a couple, pulling their luggage on wheels along, heading home on foot, having alighted from a bus.

When new in Chandigarh, I stayed for some time at a guest house in Sector-32. I would trudge back on foot at night after work. After a couple of days, I started running into stray dogs. Lying somnolent and indifferently, they would become alert on hearing the footsteps and insist on checking the identity with such persistence, letting out an occasional growl, that I soon gave up, deciding that it was not the thing to do at that ungodly hour. The strays exhibit their behavioural streaks at night—at their peak past midnight but retreat as the dawn approaches. At least this is what I have seen while making it on foot in an effort to catch a bus at Tribune Chowk or the Sector-17 bus stand.

At night, one also gets to appreciate the real beauty of the roundabouts in the city. In the darkness, bathed in the soft glow of street lights, they appear a marvel, and it makes on agree with the vision of the city’s founders. The chaos and the disorder of the day, the rush to make one’s way in the maddening traffic, take away the luxury of savouring the beauty of the roundabouts. At night, they appear so much bigger. The Matka Chowk on Madhya Marg, at the Jan Marg crossing, appeared so huge and the trees planted on them appeared so beautiful that I cursed myself for my failure to have noticed them earlier. There were boards put up by the traffic police about Road Safety Week being observed in the city from February 4-10. To instill some traffic sense in myself, I stopped at the traffic light near the GMSH-16, even when there were no cops around and no traffic. There were curious glances from passing taxiwallas who slowed down seeing me stop only to speed away.

While the traffic lights at the rotaries blink at night, those at intersections work, and in the dead of the night with nary a vehicle around, stopping there becomes totally an individual choice. At the Sector 20/30 light point, where I saw youthful joy spill over, an SUV had cosied up to me dangerously, almost leaving very little space to swerve, and a dubious looking man peeped out asking for directions. Mouthing excuses, I drove past.

Rain Baseras opposite the PGI and the GMCH-32 were quiet but one liked the colour chosen for the shelter—white. It is a favourite colour of the philanthropists. The stillness at the Rain Baseras probably indicated that the chill outside had been kept at bay. And it was not just the Rain Baseras. Tents have been put up probably to house the workers renovating the petrol pump opposite this newspaper’s office. My heart went out to see that the garage of the motor mechanic, a Sardarji, who did numerous repair work on my old jalopy, too had been done away with.

It was a cold night but clear as a glacial pool. With no fog around, the lights indicated the winter’s languor, its harshness about to be over. “The world is too opaque, distressing, and profound/This twenty minutes’ rendezvous will make my day,” one recalled Vikram Seth as one headed home.