"हाँ..." I exclaim, a bit startled. And the same knock repeats.
"कौन है?" I grunt as I shuffle between the sheets in annoyance, my voice hitting a different pitch with every syllable.
The right hand comes to life - independent of the body - and executes the motor skill of locating one's cellphone in vicinity in pitch dark (I believe it derives from the need to locate a gun, or knife, or hammer by the bedside in the past). Boop. The screen lights up next to my face, and one eye strains to gain focus on the display.
02:15. AM.
Briefly out of wits, I regain my composure. ... . The knocks are really taps coming from the room's rear window, and follow a natural rhythm in their decay. Tap ta t ta. Just air, then, on the window-pane. Soon the taps are accompanied with hushed sounds on the tin roof outside, as if somebody was covertly trying to introduce chaos to this part of the hills.
Another tap on the window. Few more beats on the tin.
Soon this infrequent affair takes a more orchestrated form as the tin roof starts to pulse with the wind and the rear window starts to crackle with the falling raindrops. There is a curiosity to learn of this concert outside, and a wish to stumble into a chance snowfall this first day (and third hour) of the new year - I'm at 6100ft, after all, so it isn't all that far-fetched. Plus, it is liberating making friends with the darkness wherever I go - helps restructure certain psychological priorities; darkness could even feature in the ending titles to my life (under "coping-with-fear", or "confidence cultivators").
With the phone's aid, I locate my headlamp (that is also lying on the bed), and rip through the cocoon of a cover I'd fashioned from the twin blankets. The night is cold, but that is partly offset by my curiosity. As I fumble with the steel latch of the verandah's door, an alert Kalu downstairs responds with muffled growls, both trusting and questioning his senses at the same time.
The latch finally gives in - some rust, general disuse, and sad carpentry revealed in the process. Petrichor first hits me as I sniffle in the air outside - first precipitation of the season, indeed. I don't feel that much a chill in the wind. Some survey reveals that this is mere rain, not snowfall, which is a bit dismaying. Then I recall that through yesterday I had been watching this gradual pileup of clouds, which I was sure wasn't a normal feature on a winter day. Finding them pouring down now only meant that it was correct observation on my part. Win.
I linger on in the verandah - for a mere minute or so. Visual component is negligible at this hour in a rural landscape - 3 lightbulbs on the opposite hill are the only feature, barring which these hills and its cluster of villages form a dark space. Aurally, however, I'm as receptive indoors as outdoors, so with the added incentive of warmth and comfort that my bed would offer, I head back in and start scribbling under the blankets in the glow from my headlamp.
Kind-of symbolic, that my first prosaic outpour in this new year begins with the first downpour of the season in these hills. New crop would take roots, and spread their arms open towards the sun, which in this part of the hills still remains the only benchmark for a content life, the dividing line between success and failure.
What we cultivate in the coming season for a content life remains to be seen.
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