Staring at the Sun

A rooftop party in the early morning. I land up slightly late, but earlier than the crowd. I sit a little bit apart, because I don't feel like participating in the conversation. I stare at the horizon, and it is beautiful. There is the Tata complex in the distance. It is ugly by day - all metal and towers and soot-black and burnt-brown. But now it is beautiful. Orange. The entire sky is orange. There are flickering lights, dancing cheerfully in the distance. The fumes coming out of the towers are lit up by the orange lights.

That orange complex has been responsible for so much in India. Right now, it looks ghostly and far away and superior - like something from another world or another time, perhaps. I feel like I'm peering through a hole into another Universe. Surely, there must be great and mysterious things going on in there, things beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals.

Sometimes, there is a blaze of orange from one of the towers. It lights up the entire sky, like sunrise. The hostels get framed in orange for a while. And all of us, sitting in front of the night canteen or out on a walk just for the heck of it, we all gasp at it, at the beauty of it, the sheer power of it. And then it dies down, and we get on with our ordinary lives, which seem a little bit dimmer somehow.