Lying awake in search of sunrises

Prologue:

4:00 AM: Too much to drink but not drunk enough.
4:30 AM: Too much to drink but not drunk enough. Have a smoke lying down. Can’t Sleep.
4:35 AM: Too much to drink but not drunk enough. Can’t Sleep. Strange buzzing in my ears. My roommates’ snoring sound like the rumblings of the Two Towers of Baradur and Isengaard and it definitely doesn’t lessen my misery!
4:45 AM: Can’t Sleep. Nusrat Fateh and Massive Attack on the Dum Mast Kalander track aren’t helping the cause either.
4:50 AM: Pushing the Goddamn envelope. Sleep dimension breaks into the real world.
4:55 AM: The melodies of progressive trance merge with the first rays of the sunlight. I decide to go see the sunrise. Sleeping can take a hike with me.

* * *

Sunrises are beautiful, and a sunrise in Mussoorie is as beautiful as any. Trapped between the stunted Shivaliks, the mist that extends from your hands all the way to the Doon valley below is surreal. The upper layers refract the sunlight, giving a strange rainbow effect. Well, the only difference is that there are no clouds with silver linings here, and neither the hope of a treasure at the end of a rainbow. It is just the chilly wind and the silent mist that constantly whispers to you in your solitude.
There are people awake and working at this unearthly hour. There’s a maid washing dishes in the cottage below. There are two different men carrying cups of tea to different people, people waking up from different dreams and perhaps different nightmares.
I wonder if tea has different flavours (I realize it does!), and does a particular flavour have a different effect on your waking up and the way the rest of your day goes? If anyone has the answer let me know. I am not a tea drinker. Sorry Tea Board of India!
There’s a dog down there too, a mother, playing with her pups and occasionally chasing a flight of pigeons away (Three sunrises later I was to realize that it was almost a morning ritual). I see a monkey who walks past on the railings I am leaning against. He picks up one of my lit-out Benson and Hedges Lights cigarette butts, has a sniff and a lick, looks at me, (I thought gave me a “My favourite brand too!” look) and then walks away to spend the rest of his day.
I realize I am here searching for sunrise. I suddenly wonder if monkeys search for sunrises too? I wonder. I like to believe they do. And since we are their descendents, maybe that’s why we look for sunrises too.
My Discman is playing Dj Tiesto’s In search of Sunrise 3. The album has built up beautifully, and it reaches its peak, which comes at Solar Stone’s Solar Coaster track. The beats come; then the melody and I close my eyes.
“How can you see the sunrise if you shut your eyes?” a part of my brain asks.
“Shut Up!” says another part, “what’s the point in looking at the sunrise when you can feel it!”
The booze the nicotine, the visions, the music; they all form a concoction and make their way to my consciousness in the rush of blood, through my veins to my head. I stretch my arms out and touch the receding mist; I imagine I can feel the rays too. I stay in that ephemeral moment, try to hold on to it. Then it vanishes into the bright sky above, the valley below, the fading beats in my ears and into the visions trapped in my memory.

* * *


Epilogue

Why do we search for sunrises? That is a question I wish to ask Mr. Tiesto if I ever have the pleasure of meeting him. He has made five albums in his ‘In Search of Sunrise’ series, each one as good as the other. Maybe he would know all about it…
It is symbolic I guess, and it still confounds me. Why is a sunrise (or a sunset) romanticized so much? Is it not the same thing over and over again? Doesn’t it get boring after a point? And if that is the case then every human being should catch only one Sunrise and one Sunset per lifetime to save the human race for eternal boredom.

But, I got my answer there in Mussoorie. It is because each one is different. It is about searching for the perfect sunrise, the ominous fulfilling moment.
I hadn’t found my perfect sunrise yet. Hell, I hadn’t even been In search of a sunrise till that day…damn!
I had a minor epiphany then:
“Waking up is the best when you weren’t asleep in the first place.”