When the sun hit snooze
The alarm was not set to go off for another forty odd minutes. I woke up, and framed by the window, the moon was painted on a dark muslin. Unwilling to get up, I lay abed, awake. As I watched through the bars of the window, the light’s breath clouded over a dawning sky.
The sun was to rise at 6.29 AM, I had checked the sites the night before, and that was still an hour away. I continued to watch the sky, the city’s sleepy hush as comforting as the light sheet I was twined with. I cannot tell you what I thought, for those minutes did not exist; everything had happened before, and something would happen after, but for those minutes, it was as if I could lie there, suspended in time and space. There was nothing to decide, nothing to do, nothing to mull over.
Then, suddenly, the alarm rang. Brush. Auto. Haggle. Auto. When had they built a wall on the bridge over the Adyar? I could not see the two scraggly trees that stood near the backwaters, unmindful of traffic. The auto trudged on, the tarpaulin peeled off flower shops, and there was an old building that seemed to sink into the sludge around, people jogging, and soon, we arrived at the beach. It was 6.34 on the screen of my phone; I had missed the sunrise. After I paid for the auto ride, I turned to look at the sky, a bit glum, and there was no sun staring back at me, smug.
Where was the sun?
A table stood on the beach unwilling to answer my question, wrapped in plastic. A tire sat there on top. A nearby tree painted its branches over the sky stretched like a Japanese silken screen. And no sun.
And then I saw a reddish orange leaking out of plumped clouds. I spotted the sun snoozing under a gray rajai, unwilling to get up. As I walked toward the shoreline, I met a familiar scene. Whenever I saw loved ones sleep, resting softly, I never wished to wake them up; I would watch them for a moment or two and then tiptoe out of the room. I sank into the sands, watching. The sun slept.
