The peacock's night cry

Originally posted as IIT by night

Returning home from the late night show at Gurdev Palace, you first see IIT somewhere just before Kalyanpur - tubelights strewn around like spilt matchsticks in the distance. And then you cycle past the stalls sleeping behind dirty jute curtains in the yellow streetlight, past the temple blaring noise in the name of religion, past the shops at the gate - the paan shop is just shuttering up - and now you are at the railway crossing that is the true gate into IIT. It is closed today, because Marudhar is coming late. You take your cycle to the right, through the little gap between the concrete post and the end of the yellow striped boom of the gate and onto the roughcut stones of the railway line but the train is almost here, you can see it and you wait. A rush of steam and air and the thumping rhythmic noise and a blur of mystery behind half closed windows and the train is gone. You proceed into the stones and cross the tracks even while the dark bundled figure has emerged from his hut and is creaking up the gate.

So this is it. You are back home now, back in this oasis of civilized existence. The dim yellow lights give way to bright white, the road is smooth and broad with the bumps clearly painted, and there is a hint of flower behind the well-trimmed hedges. It rained recently after a long dry spell, and there is the smell of wet ground in the air. To the left you cross the garbage trailer that has not moved from this spot for years, though of late it is not spilling its wastes over the landscape with the profusion of a few months back.

Although it is past midnight, you cross a group taking a stroll near the banyan tree; white kurta pyjamas and colourful saris muted dark in the night. Snatches of conversation drifts in the air as you bicycle past. A bump where the well-trodden path leads to the Shopping Center on the right, and now you are at the crossing near SAC, turning left towards the Visitor's Hostel. You can hear singing ahead - the midterms have just finished, and merrymakers abound. It is a group of girls singing down the street - you can make out vague forms as they join hands and dance recklessly near the director's bungalow - "Ek ajnabi, hasina se, fir mulakat ho gai... " You decide it is too early to turn in, and drop in at the CC for a round at the terminal, hoping to finish TeXing that paper at last, but the moment has overtaken you.

And that is why, across these many miles of space and time, you can still feel the night air of IIT come to visit you, and the smell of the ground after last nights rain, and the occasional night cry of a sleepless peacock in the distance.

Amitabha Mukerjee (amit@iitk.ernet.in)