Light and Shade

“Into the woods on an October afternoon. I lie in the sun, on sweet smelling grass, and gaze up through a pattern of oak leaves into a blinding blue heaven. And I praise god for leaves and grass and smell of things — the smell of mint and bruised clover- and the touch of things — the touch of grass and air and the sky’s blueness.”

Ruskin Bond, A Little Book of Happiness

The seasons are changing and so are we all, aren’t we? We stand here unmoved, towering over the other forms of life- those that can’t talk or think the way we do and are therefore considered lesser. Yet as the sun and the moon play their merry-go-rounds around us, our shadows change, our shades change, we find ourselves changing. Our stance now no longer rigid; our hearts no longer unmoved; our hands no longer frozen. The blades of grass are now our friends. A ray of light greets a dewdrop and breaks into multitudes of colours. A dog chases its shadow in the burning afternoon sun till the shadow merges with the cool shade of a plump old man walking home from the library. At night, an owl blinks at a baby girl who has crawled out, inconspicuously, to the verandah. The glossy eyes of the owl reflect the moonlight and lodge themselves right into the girl’s memory. Light and shade forge new friendships- owl and girl; dog and man; rays and dew; grass and us. And of course, our lyrical friendship with the moon.

“Raat humaari toh chaand ki saheli hai, kitne dinon ke baad aayi woh akeli hai.

Samjha ke baatein bhi koi bujha de aaj, andhere se jee bhar ke karni hain baatein aaj.”

Swanand Kirkire’s lyrics to Shantanu Moitra’s music.

From the dark undertones and contrast of chiaroscuro like those of Rembrandt, Da Vinci and other painters during the Renaissance to Impressionism’s beautiful plays of blinding light on Monet’s leaves and ponds, I wonder what it is about light and shade that makes humankind feel differently, perceive ourselves differently, start revolutions in art itself and start our lives anew, a moment afresh. What is it about night and day that has given artists their art, writers their muse, and poets their philosophy? Or lack thereof?

“But what after all is one night?” asks Virginia Woolf in The Lighthouse. “ A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night however succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen, they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of the harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the waves lapping blue to the shore.”

Notes:

1. A Little Book of Happiness, Ruskin Bond, 160 pages, published by Speaking Tiger

2. ‘Raat Humaari Toh Chaand Ki Saheli Hai’, Shantanu Moitra, K.S. Chitra, Swanand Kirkire, From the movie Parineeta

3. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, Multiple publishers