300 Seconds

For about one and half years of my life, I lived in a quiet little place called Lenavilaku. About 13 kilometers from the town of Pudukottai on the Trichy Rameshwaram highway, Lenavilaku was the name of the junction where a rural road intersected the highway. It was a small house in a  real estate plot off the highway that had been developed recently. There were not many houses around.

At about ten in the night everyday, the power went off for about five minutes. Far from city and vehicle lights, the sky suddenly lit up with billions of stars. During the long weekends when my friends and neighbours were away, I would gaze upon the skies in solitude and absolute silence. For those three hundred seconds, you forget everything.

You forgot CA. You forgot CN.
You forgot education. You forgot jobs.
You forgot achievement. You forgot disappointment.
You forgot dreams. You forgot ambition.

You forgot family. You forgot sibling.
You forgot enemy. You forgot friend.
You forgot laughter. You forgot weeping.
You forgot language. You forgot music.

You forgot history. You forgot philosophy.
You forgot learning. You forgot teaching.
You forgot birth. You forgot death.
You forgot the known. You forgot the unknown.

You forgot yourself.

Then the tube lights flickered and the ceiling fans whirred and you had a life to live.

* CA and CN stand for Computer Architecture and Computer Networks, two of the many subjects that I used to be engaged in when the power went off.