Don't make no sense lighting candles...
There's too much moonlight in my life!

It was the night of 9th December. We were heading to Pune to attend Fest-O-Comm, whose mention you'd find in the archives.

Outside of the fact that I was on a train with two Jain Gujarati freaks sitting next to me, (one of them, a classic case of umm... non compos mentis, euphemised for safety), it was a night I won't forget.

It's not often that you hit the road on a starlit full moon night. And it's just one of those occasions when you are brought down on your knees by the sheer awe-inspiring, brain-scrambling beauty of something you might have seen and ignored all your life up till now. (Not me, though!)

The full moon came out. THANK GOD for window seats! The idea of being out in a jungle, miles away from civilisation, on a cold, starlit & moonlit night... REALLY has its own kicks. Eerie as it may sound.

Wherever I looked at, there was nothing but moonlight. Miles and miles of pure, beautiful moonlight. Not bouncing back from the walls of sky scrappers. Not adulterated by the city air. Just the stunning gorgeous moonlight.

I swear I could live in that moment forever.

And there's something about looking at a full moon through the dried branches of an Asoka at nighttime that I can't explain. Or for that matter... looking at the moon's reflection in a pond.

Words become pointless at some point. You realise how inadequate they are. The feeling was beyond words. It then hit me in the most powerful way that seeing truly is believing.

Scenes inspired poetry. Luckily Shishir was the poet on board. On my request, he scribbled down two poems in one evening, inspired by the moonlight. Quite amazing, actually. One of the poems came damn to close to summing up the feeling.

The feeling on the night, when I hit the sack with too many thoughts. And too many images and ideas of what heaven on earth might seem like. Especially on a full moon night.

Here's the poem. Tentatively titled 'Chaandni'.
(How imaginative is that?!)

Na jaane kaisi yeh kashish hai
Aaj raat ke is chaand mei
Par hai kuch khaas baat is chaandni mei
Mehsoos kar raha hoo anokha sukoon is chaandni mei

Nazarei hatati nahi, tiki rehti hai us par
Kudrat jaise baras rahi hai us par
Sochu kabhi thehar jaaoo is pal mei yahi
Kabhi sochu jee lu har pal mai yahi

Yeh chaandni diwana kar rahi hai mujhe
Khud se bhi begana kar rahi hai mujhe
Khuda ki khudai saari tar aayi ban ke chaandni
Is jahaan ki khubsurati nazar aayi ban ke chaandni

If you liked the poem, you can ask Shishir for more at shishir777000 at yahoo dot co dot in.