Moonlight - The universe is mystically simplified, there is magic all around.

 

Moonlight

It often happens that we feel a certain emotion but fail to find the words to express those. Like the word “Hiraeth”, I came across it pretty recently on a social media platform and suppose a lot of us at some point in our lives have experience the immense longing for a home that is not really a tangible place to be in;, which is summed up in this one, little, on the brink of poetry the word Hiraeth. Strikingly similar to Haerath in Urdu which means wonder/amazement.

I too felt a eureka moment, as I scrolled through my social media feeds and opened my message box to a post someone had shared with me in mind. Selenophile; A person who likes to look at the moon. Etched on a backdrop of a blood moon, this post was almost perfect.

I went running to my sister’s room exclaiming in excitement, Aapi, AApi, AApiieeee! Look what I found! A word for my obsession with staring at the moon so pretty!

It’s called a Selenophile. I beamed with a smile stretching from one corner of my face to another. 

“Hmm…… . . . Badhiya hai”
“Hai na, . . . . . .. . Hai to” I made my stuffed tiger nod in agreement to my statement. 

Later in the evening, it was supposed to be a full moon night. I was beyond excited and had to catch up with aapi too. We decided to sit on the terrace for our chit chat session after dinner.
It was a beautiful night after an uneventful day of virtual rakhi celebration amidst Covid season in 2020 India. Our brother’s were in a different city and we two only could meet up, thanks to the fact that we were both in Delhi NCR. 

Sitting on the terrace we both let our hair down, it had been a long day. We started with the usual catching up of worklife and how work from home made us miserable. It went on and on and we lost track of time, it was close to midnight as we could hear the silence after the sound of the water supply motors being turned off which is usually around twelve-twelve thirty in this locality. Oddly enough, I heard the familiar cooing of our street dog Katrina coming from somewhere close by. Aapi and I both turned heads to look at the terrace gate to find no one. It was odd, but the sound persisted. We both looked at each other with a little fear, since we watched too many horror movies and read vampire novels during school days. 

Much to our relief, I spotted the silly goose atop the fourth floor of our neighbours terrace. Propped on her hind legs, she peeped with her paws on the ledge. It was both funny and scary in the middle of the night. Poor thing wanted to climb down to meet us. Somehow we convinced her by scolding tightly and she went back inside the neighbours house. It was funny how she would show up at random doorsteps by jumping balconies. We both had a good laugh over it and went back to our discussions. Around one o'clock I thought someone came on the neighbours terrace right behind us and it felt like the person ran away faster than they walked to the terrace.

“Aapi ye bhaga kyun?”

“Chhod na.. . . . . kuchh bhool gya hoga, sannu ki?” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Ye bhi thik hai”

“Ek min aapi, full moon pe apan dono chhat pe baithe raat ke ek baje”
“Haan to? Hawa achhi chal rahi hai, yahaan koi ye ni bolne wala k tum bachche sote kyun nahi aur mogre k phoolo ki halki khushbu bhi badi pyaari aari hai” 

“Isilye to nahi bhagg gye wo bhenji ya bhaisaab?”

I was thinking out loud. Someone walks to the terrace in the middle of the night probably after finishing their work shift. They must be tired and see a bright full moon, light breeze and two young girls sitting on the floor with long hair flowing freely. Must have been scary for whoever it was, given how indian  cinema has tainted the image of the full moon. We laughed a lot after this discussion and then I woke up. Turns out I had been taking a nap.

What happened after that was the weird part, because I had a notification on my Instagram, Puja shared a post. I opened the post, the image has the word Selenophile: A person who admires the moon.