Dawn and dusk are times apparently opposite to each other. Dawn breaks forth before sunrise and dusk sets in before evening. Both are transitory periods that act as the meeting points of two different phases of the 24-hour circle of a day. Yet the breaking of the dawn is a moment enshrining in it expectations, hopes, possibilities, freshness and liveliness. On the other hand, dusk is gloomy, livid, sad and 'like a patient etherized upon a table' as visualised by TS Eliot in his poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".
Such a description of the dusk may well be right for the critical time before evening in the Western hemisphere in certain months of the year. But in this country dusk is not all pensive, sombre, colourless and uninspiring. Poet Jibanananda has celebrated dusk unlike any other of his peers. Dusk in Bangla is 'godhuli' that sounds better than the English word. But then English also has a very sweet sounding word for it. It is twilight ---fading light but still something quite romantic about it.
If dawn is invigorating, dusk is languid when tardy steps of people towards home mark a return to a place that binds life to its mooring with love and care. Both dawn and dusk have their quiet beauty ---one bursting forth in brightness and the other heading towards darkness. The best picture the typical dusk in this part of the world presents is that of a rakhal (herder or herdsman) returning home with his cattle herd in the twilight. This is homecoming for both cattle and the man who tends those animals.
However dusk would simply be insignificant had it not also made us face ourselves as no other time can do. It is a time to pause and ponder and look searchingly inward what we stand for. The day's business over, people surely cannot help delving deep in the fading light the meaning of life if of course they have the leisure allocated for them. The fact is that city people are too busy to look around and most of them even do not know when the dusk sets in and how it really looks like. The lucky few know that it is a perfect setting in the sky that transports one to a realm different from this material world. Petty concerns no longer trouble the soul that discovers the natural decline of everything much as it might have flourished and attained glory.
The feeling at dusk is not exactly a call of the inevitable but an introduction to the unknown. The experience is neither pleasant nor disturbing. It does not unsettle but impregnate with the idea of reality of the impermanence of life on this planet. It is the time when words become irrelevant and silence takes over. Rabindranath expresses this feeling succinctly in a song, "Godhuli gagone dhekechhilo tara/ aamar ja katha chhilo hoye gelo hara". When words fail, silence expresses more than those could convey.
Not all dusks sets one thinking deep. But there is a coincidence of romance coming to an end at dusk. This is exactly why a windless dusk when the sky gives in to heavy shower turns into a perfect setting for breakaway of the lovers. Even the beloved did not even raise her eyes to meet those that fixed the gaze on her face. The darkness enveloped the silent pain and there is no chance another such evening will ever arrive. For the life, it is all over.
It is not for nothing, twilight and years are combined to produce a sense of a time past the summit of life when it is at its most active, productive and vigorous. Some exceptional mortals, however, stay as cheerful and creative as they ever were. Nirad C Chaudhury was such a man who defied age and lived 101 years only to remain literally active and productive almost until his last days. The musical reality show "Sare ga ma pa" sprang a surprise last week when 82-year mother of Shantanu Moitra, the lead judge, danced on the stage with Kaushiki Chakrobarty's song. Just imagine at the age of 82, her movement was flawless and graceful. Dawn or dusk, never mind! Celebrate life the best way possible.
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