It is 3 a.m. in the morning. I don’t know why the hell I am not sleeping. Without going into the details of why I am not sleeping and ignoring what the doctor had to tell me the other day when I went for a check up regarding my backbone (as both these tend to make me not feel good about myself 😉), I must tell you how wonderful a view I just got to witness from my balcony, which is fortunately located on the 7th floor of a high rise apartment in my city.

I could nearly see the entire city sleeping right in front of my eyes. The silence is too intriguing, only to be broken by a couple of vehicles that tend to race down the street in search of their respective destinations. Even the government colony (I have always wondered as to which department it belongs to but haven’t found the same till date), which stands right across my apartment, seems a master piece when it comes to the architectural description of the same.

I, feeling this way, could only mean two things. Either the government has become very creative or I have lost it at 3 a.m. in the morning and am in the mode of hallucinating about things ranging from anything to everything in this World. Somehow, I have become a die-hard fan of the calm and the silence coupled with the suspense that night tends to bring along with itself.

This whole night phenomenon tends to cast its serene shadow on all the homo sapiens who have got so used to missing all the charisma that tends to accompany the moon. I guess, it is because of the way in which we have evolved over time that we have got so accustommed to be sleeping at night and performing all our livelihood activities during the day time.

I, sometimes, wonder how different the things would have been if it was the other way round. Consider a scenario wherein our predecessors had the luxury of light and energy. Would they have preferred slogging in the heat during day-time or instead would they have chosen to work in the extremely pleasant weather that night choses to bestow upon us? And in that case, we would all be sleeping during the day time and working at night. How wonderful it would have been to see the rising sun after having slogged hard at night!

Coming back to the reality, we are still very much living a so called normal life, where we sleep at night and work during the day-time. The circadian rythms tend to follow a normal course in this case and we all tend to be happy living a very normal and at times dull and boring life.

It is not that keeping awake at night is going to make our lives happening. It is just that how used to we have all become to leading a normal way of life that on every occassion where the situation demands a bit of risk to be taken at our end, we tend to shy away from the same, thinking about the consequences that it might bring along with itself and wondering whether it is in our own interest to be deviating away from the normal way of life that we have got so accustommed to living.

Today, I was talking to a very dear friend of mine, who was telling me how much he would have loved to break free from the shackles of the normal life that he is living at the moment. How much he wished he could just get away from all the daily hassels that he involuntarily has to go through.

I know that it is not possible to be doing this every day. And some of you might even contest the claim that the normal life is the ideal life, so to say, as it tends to bring along stability, a sense of responsibility and in turn makes us become the ideal societal being that this society wants to turn us all into.

True to some extent, and of course I am not averse to the idea of having normality restored in our lives. What I don’t like, though, is that in trying to lead a normal life, we all tend to lose the essence of life altogether. We end up getting caught in this 5-day (Thank God it is Friday TGIF) kind of notions, wherein all the pleasure and the fun emanating from the very concept of life seems to get lost in this materialistic hooplah.

What better way to conclude this article than by taking a leaf from the movie ZNMD (Zindagi na Milegi Dobara):

Dilon mein tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho.
Toh zinda ho tum!
Nazar mein khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum!

Hawa ke jhonkon ke jaise aazad rehna seekho
Tum ek dariya ke jaise, leharon mein behna seekho
Har ek lamhe se tum milo khole apni baahein
Har ek pal ek naya samaa dekhe ye nigaahe

Jo apni aankhon mein hairaniyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum!
Dilon mein tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho
Toh zinda ho tum!

Source for Image: http://www.the-means-of-life.blogspot.in/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zindagi_Na_Milegi_Dobara