Sunday, November 23, 2008

The Terrace

The terrace is the best place in the house for me. A decade ago, the view was either the sky or magnificent trees. Now, the majority is either buildings or light spilt over and onto the sky. The green trees are minimal and although sky is still there, the bright lights of the advertisement hoardings and the mall nearby eclipse the beautiful twinkling light of the stars.

The stars always remind me of what Yann Martel said in Life of Pi. God has made this world so beautiful in just two colours. The white twinkling light of the stars against this vast blackness of the sky. It is such a wonderful, wonderful sight.

Add silence to this and it’s a beautiful world of its own, shunned from the constant motoring noises. Add the perfect sphere of the Moon and subtract all the clouds and you are awestruck. Just cant help gazing and staring at the tranquility. There is a divinity, spirituality and universality about it all that cannot be explained.

Back in the days when Bangalore’s HAL airport was functional for commercial purposes, we used to have flights preparing for landing over our locality. Some flights waiting for their turn and hence circling, some in the queue and some opening up their wheels, ready for descent. Between 9 pm and 10 pm, there were at least about 10 to 12 flights landing. Apart from the natural beauty all around, this man made bird was another thing of joy!

I don’t know what is it about an airplane that fascinates me but it sure does make me stop my after-dinner-walk and see every time a plane hovers over my house. Perhaps it’s the magnificence of the human mind that has thought of such an engineering marvel to simulate a bird! But alas, now that the new airport is 40 miles away from my house, hardly any plane can be seen.

Well, I wanted to write about something else and instead the prologue itself became the content, although a trifle repeated! But I guess that suffices for now…!

2 comments:

Annonymous said...

Totally agree! One more feeling that i experience when i gaze at the sky is the vastness! It makes my so called "worries/thoughts" feel so small and i always come back with the resolve that i need to "expand" myself....this thought gives me a very refreshing feeling and makes me view the world with a new and different perspective. I feel this is a form of meditation by itself.

The sea/beach is another experience which can be compared to the "terrace experience". I feel i can sit for hours and hours gazing at the waves and the horizon. I experience silence and inner calm.

Harsha, please do elaborate this article if you can... I am not sure about the other readers but i was left with the feeling of "Oh! the article is over :( wish there was more...."

Good one! Experienced the "terrace experience" while reading this!

Harsha S Rao said...

Thanks Janani. Glad you liked it. Will surely write more about it. I for one cant stop writing about it. I totally agree about watching the sea giving the same experience!