An Evening: Lighting up the Night

My cellphone woke me up. It was a text message from one of my friend. "Good Morning", it said. Who the f*** wishes good morning at 12 noon, I thought. It's still bed time for me. But as they say, once you lose the flow, it's hard to regain it. I woke up, only to see both of my room-mates fast asleep. First thing I did was to switch on my laptop. Drank water, and ate left-overs of the previous night's CS (Counter Strike) party.

After going through all those regular email and social networking sites, what caught my attention was my Google Calender. Light the Night - 18:00 - Phoenix Market City, it said. And then in a moment, all my Early Morning Blues evaded in no time. What I had been waiting for, had finally come. 

Light the Night - an event where you literally 'light the night'. Started off with the idea of breaking the world record for the most number of sky lanterns released at the same time. But this pre-event was just about creating a greener Diwali; Full of lights, but minus that discomfort to your ears. I was introduced to this by one of my senior, just out of chance. At the very moment I heard about this, something had caught my attention, and I just wanted to be a part of it. That was one day. And then, today, where I was just hours away from it.

I soon called up all other 7 people who were supposed to accompany me. I could reach all but one. I got ready, had the first meal of the day from the hostel canteen, and then finally everyone was ready. Head count. 6 it was, including me. One was missing. Shrey. 3 calls, no answer. Ran to the third floor, took the stairs. And what I see is him sleeping at 4:00 PM. A few word exchanges, a few kicks, and a few slaps were all that took me to wake him up. He was quick in getting ready for the day. 

Next thing was reaching the destination. Not sure of exactly how to reach, we took a chance, putting our luck to test. Thankfully we managed to reach the destination, safely and well in time. Reaching there, the sight was a treat to our eyes. The whole venue was decorated comparable to a bride on her wedding day.

Photo Credits - The Photowallas

Photo Credits - The PicSnapr's Photography

And the good thing was, this was just the beginning. Completing all the formalities, holding the lanterns in our hands, we were all excited for the moment. But before the main event, we got to see some spectacular b-boying moves along with that awesome beat-boxing, and not to forget that witty anchor. 

Photo Credits - The PicSnapr's Photography

Till finally, it was time to brighten up the sky, and light the lanterns. And what I saw next left me complete dumbstruck. It was an awe-inspiring moment. Literally, a heavenly feeling. You just didn't wanted all this to end. All I wished for at that moment, was to pause, lay back and enjoy the sight, forever. Those flickering lanterns, flying up into the skying, with no limits and no where to go, signifying all your sorrows and sadness in your life to let go, towards infinity, with no limits; to make space for happiness to come.

Photo Credits - The PicSnapr's Photography

My shoes were glued to the ground. 

I couldn't move, rather I didn't wanted to move,

for I-don't-know how long. 

I didn't cared. 

I was lost.

And I loved it.

Photo Credits - The Photowallas

But even in all this, it's hard to ignore the fact that all you had since morning was just a veg puff and a samosa. Without much torture to my tummy, we decided to have something at the adjoining food court. Trust me, we were all so hungry that we literally pounced on our food. Then in all this someone caught an eye on the watch. S***, we are late. We then had two options. Hurry up and run to hostel, or stay there and enjoy some more, cause anyway we are late. And I'm glad we chose the latter. With some more bakchodi to be done, we were finally out of the venue.

If getting there was not certain, how could coming back be? And then somebody yells, Bus stop is nearby, let's walk. No harm, we all thought. What was supposed to be nearby, turned out to be 3 Kms. I'm still not able to figure out who said it was nearby. But thanks to Shrey's useless ways of passing time, 3 Kms seemed like 300 Mts. 

Time to switch our bus at Silk Board bus junction. Another walk of 100 meters. Now imagine you are discussing something really serious on a walk with your friend, when another friend runs past you yelling on top of his voice, RUN, RUN RUN. All I could do was to run involuntary behind him. It didn't took long for me to realize this was all just to catch a bus. Inside the bus, I started searching for someone. Then I realized, he wasn't there. Where's Abhishek?, I said. Must be somewhere here only, he replied. Doing a head count and upon calling him I realized, it was 4 of us who had managed for catch the bus while the other 3 were left back there. This realization was followed by all sorts of frustrations that come through one's mouth, and the best thing to do in such a situation is to hand over the phone to someone else, and that's exactly what I did. We reached the college first, but waited for them outside since we had common gate passes. Since it was already late at night, the bus frequency was very low. Waiting for another half hour, three of them came. It looked like a scene from a C-grade remake of the male version of Charlie's Angels. After this, getting inside 10 people when you have made a gate pass for only 6, was a piece of cake. It's 11:40 PM, we're screwed, one said. Screw you, the other replied and went to the security guard to burst some crackers along with him. The guards were kind enough to give us a few, just like that. 

11:45 PM, it was, and we entered the hostel. Usually, I would have taken stairs directly to first floor, but this time it was different. We were forced to head to the warden's office. Trying all sorts hand actions, and all sorts of dialect variations, we tried to explain him where we had gone (He understood little Hindi and English). And, as expected, we were made to write an apology letter. And this was the part which I enjoyed the most. There is a saying, If you don't know what to write, then tie the goat to tree and explain about the tree. That's exactly what I did. It was less of an apology letter and more of an report of what all we did and about the event. I wrote everything, right from who the sponsors were, to the bus number we took, to what we ate, and even the amount of bill. Whoever reads it (I doubt anyone would even read it), will have a really tough time figuring out which part I am actually apologizing. 

One thing I've noticed, when you're in hostel, you're always a bhukkadd. My tummy was again trying to make his presence felt. Upon reaching the hostel canteen, what we find is that it just got closed. But thanks to the sweet canteen uncle, he understood our situation, rather our tummy's situation, and opened it again. Grabbing all that we'll be needing, we got back to our rooms, to do what we love doing, to do what we were doing all these days - Play CS!