Pause

The sunset was glorious today. The kind that makes you want to write poetry about it. The kind that makes you long for life on the highway, the wind in your hair and destination unknown, and not behind the picture glass window in front of your desk that gives you a wonderful view of the sky. I stood looking at it for a long time. Till the orange ball of light dipped beneath the horizon, playing peekaboo with the clouds, painting them in ravishing golden hues. I watched it till it disappeared, exhausted from the day's work, both me and the sun.

The beauty of the sunset kinda takes away from the brutality the sun unleashes upon Chennai during the day. It's not fair, right? All day long, we curse the heat. And then at dusk, even grown men stop for a moment to stare and admire the view (and click pictures, of course, because you simply HAVE to click pictures of everything nowadays). It's weirdly like an abusive relationship where the woman puts up with the man's abuses and assaults, but at the end of the day, turns putty in his hands when he seems to repent and says "I'm sorry. I do this only because I love you so much? Can't you see that?"

I stared for a long time at the sunset. I stared till one of my colleagues yelled "Enough Divya, it won't stare back at you." And everyone laughed. Who said it won't stare back? It was staring right back at me, in all its golden glory, telling me, it's ok. What do they know? For them, the moment is over the minute they click a picture and post it to their Whatsapp group, with people commenting "wow, beautiful". For them, the magic is over the second the colour dulls. They don't have the patience to stand and look at the multitude of shades the sky was getting painted in. Who has time for all that?

It was telling me, it's ok, life is not all that bad. You may have bad days, you may have tough phases, you may have to deal with difficult people with a smile. But it's ok. For every bad day, there are hundred excellent ones. For every tough phase, there are innumerable extraordinary ones. For every difficult person, there are hundreds of others who love you unconditionally for who you are, who don't ask "Why are you, you?"; who don't expect you to 'stick to the template'.

For every brutal Chennai day, there is a glorious sunset at the end of it.