The girl you love or the who girl who loves you?

Are you one who has loved
With the passion of a burning fire
Or are you the one who said ‘I love you too’
And in same breath called yourself a liar

But I will stop the watch

And inanely compose such a rhyme
Knowing no one will answer, I‘d ask,
Whom do you wanna be this time?

Whom would you marry? It’s an honest question. Probably some romantic idealists would say neither, but in a world of 6 Billion people what is the probability that the person you love also found you and only you to love? Or the other way around? Very bleak I would say. And if you are saying that you don’t know the whole world then you are just compromising with the people who you know; while your soulmate (if such a thing exists) might be some other country, speaking some other language and probably 20 year older than you.

That leaves me with this question and this very real scenario. Even in the most perfect couples there is always some power imbalance, somebody who first initiated the dialogue or dropped hints at the start of the relationships; somebody who mostly makes up first after a fight; somebody who is a little insecure; somebody who got told he or she is lucky to have found the other person.

So whom do you wanna be the lover or the loved? The person who took pity on the other person because he or she has been there even after rebuttals, insults and being used & discarded. Or the other person who thinks that the other is the one who he or she was destined to be with and can’t be without? Who always wanted to take care of her and is now able to, who always wanted to be the center of his attention and cause of his smile and now finally is.  

“Through the storm, we reach the shore
You gave it all but I want more” –

U2

I think it is better to marry the girl who loves you. It makes better sense logically. You can count on her loyalty. She will always go the extra mile to please you, she will watch the movies you want, eat food you like and have sex when you feel like. She will say sorry first when you fight, go away when you are angry and come back when you need support. It is her problem to make you like her and not the other way around; she will make you look good in front of her friends, throw surprise parties on your birthday and just smile when you forget hers. And if not anything else, it is huge ego boost to have someone doting on you so much.

Maybe you will someday fall in love with her, or at least you can tell yourself that. Ayn Rand had said that you need reasons to love someone. And whole hearted and blind love is a good reason as any. Any which ways you will get fond of her or at least dependent on her after you continue long enough. Hell you even start liking your dog that has been with you for 3 months, she is after all a human being. Least you can do is give her attention and an occasional act of kindness. Many people don’t even get that, and for most that is enough from the people they love. It will keep them satiated. One sided lovers have second -hand lives. They derive theirs from their lover; their happiness, their self-worth, their sense of purpose and their gratification. It is not a bad life if you ask me, for them I mean. They get happiness out of it and some distortion of a companionship. It is more than what half of the world is living with. And it certainly beats the bitterness, sarcasm and brewing but implicit hostility that is between many couples who never had or don’t have any love for each other anymore. But most of all you are not giving her the pain and heartbreak that someone gets when the love of their life leaves them. Many can’t get over it their entire lives and a few end it. It is the biggest favor anyone can do anyone if you ask me.

“Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you” –

U2

Marry the girl you love and you will be playing catch-up your whole life, it is like the deer who runs for a pool of water in the desert and the farther he runs, further the pool of water of gets away from him. Sooner or later the deer dies of the thirst and exhaustion he accumulated running for that pool of water. The pool of water is a mirage, an illusion, something that is there somewhere but you will never find it, and that search will kill you in the end. The deer would have been better off if he had never started running for that water in the first place. Likewise is the love you would never get. It is a tough life, because no matter how much would you do for her, it would never be enough, the constant nagging that if I would have done that or done that better, she would love me back will kill you sooner or later. And if that doesn’t, the insecurity will; every late night, every afternoon lunch without you, anytime when her whereabouts are not known, every time she run towards the phone when it rings, every time she smiles at some stranger will drive a million daggers through your heart. Gregory David Roberts had once written – “Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an over-crowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out - your friends, everyone you used to know.   And it’s still not enough The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it.” Whom do you wanna be when then boat goes down? Rose or Jack? Trust me there is nothing sadder than one half of a great love that will never be.

I am a Nihilist, ontologically.  I don’t think life has a higher purpose. After we are gone there is nothing, we are ashes or dust. There is no greatness in self-sacrifice, morality, doing good for others, life is as Friedrich Nietzsche said “Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.”  But before that I am a hedonist, I believe that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a man is only goal is to strive to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain). So what do you think will bring you the maximum pleasure? Of course marrying the girl who loves you.

And finally. Why do I ask this question? I don’t know. It is a good question to be asked. And I like Yossarian am a ‘collector of good questions’. For the most part I think it is habit of abyss gazing, and to quote Nietzsche again “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Of these two girls, I have none. And I had both. And what would I do? I would marry the girl I love. But then … I’m an emotional fool.

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness” –

Friedrich Nietzsche

P.S. - If you bothered to read through 1275 words and 1300 whites spaces please do bother to leave a comment, I want to know what people feel about this whole affair.

The Great Annual Appraisal !

Ok this part is true – File this in the non-fiction shelf.

My company’s campus is such that it is some distance from the main gate to the building where we all work (700 meters to be precise). And it’s uphill. And our company through its green initiative or some other HR shit decided to keep bicycles at the gate which employees can take from the gate to the main building.

But the problem is, as I mentioned before, that it is some distance and it is uphill. So much that lazy fat bastards like me can’t cycle till there without their life flashing before their eyes. And most people are like me in my company, they wanna whiz on the cycles downhill, but not the other way around. So this creates a serious logistics issue; that all the cycles are piled up downhill with no one to take them up, and people waiting up for the cycles which never reach them. So my caring company has devised a solution, we have one guard whose job is to take cycles from the gate to the building. That’s what he does all day, he starts at around 11 and ships cycles to the building stand, by riding one and holding one in the other hand and deposits them uphill so that employees coming out of the building in the evening can ride them down with ease and get the hell out a tad faster. That what that guy’s job is – he is a transporter of the non gun-wielding, Asian-girl-kissing, getting-into-car-chases variety; he transports cycles from A to B.
So once I and a couple of my friends saw this and joked about it asking how would this guy’s JD read like, I remarked “Even worse is what will this guy fill in his annual appraisal form?”. Well if this guy was any smart and his hiring manager even smarter here is what both of them read like –

(Fiction starts here)

JD –

Job Description – XYZ Security Solutions Ltd
Title: Security & Transport Executive
Reports to: Account Security Head
Based at: Client Location.

Job purpose:

To plan and carry out direct logistics activities, so as to maintain and enhance client employees transportation requirement in accordance with agreed business plans. The applicant must be energetic, self-motivated, fit and possessing high resistance to environmental factors.

Key responsibilities and accountability:

1.    Develop and actionize a lean and efficient customer transport mechanism.
2.    Reduce travel time and augment client employee productivity and morale.
3.    Enhance equipment utilization and optimize client’s business resources.
4.    Continuously access client’s conveyance requirements and suggest process improvements.
5.    Monitor and report on activities and provide relevant management information.
6.    Carry out primary research and develop queuing time charts and processing timings during peak load.
7.    Maintain and report on equipment suitability.
8.    Liaise and attend meetings with other company functions necessary to perform duties and aid business and organizational development.
9.    Provide security detail and administer client infrastructure during ad-hoc requirement.
10.    Attend training and to develop relevant knowledge and skills.

Performance appraisal form -

A1.  State your understanding of your main duties and responsibilities.
Shaab Ji, as per my understanding my main role is to ensure the following:-
a)    The usual time taken by the employees to travel from the campus gate to main gate is 5 minutes. With my process innovation, intervention and improvisation this should ideally come down to 2 minutes. This would mean a 60% efficiency improvement. This way the HR could actually enforce a 9:18 hours per day policy. 3 minutes/day for 4000 employees could mean 4000 man hours in a month. Calculate your client charge yourself now, will ya!

b)    One of the major challenges for an IT company is employee retention or churn rate. With our innovation, we provide an alternative to the pretty girls to leverage the tool being discussed here, instead of walking that wicked mile in scorching heat. Less exposure to heat ensures that they remain pretty for longer period of times (even longer than the employees working on SAP support projects), which keeps intact the only motivation for guys to stay in this company. This also ensures higher client presentability employee ratio and doesn’t hurt the already low self-esteem of female employees.

c)    The pretty girl, the only hope of survival for guys in a high bench environment, should not be allowed to walk that wicked half mile under the sun. This has multiple side effects such as high attrition (guys leaving the company due to lack of good looking girls), reduced client presentability and low self-esteem of girls. Their health is least of our concerns here.

d)    As I have noticed during the last few days, approximately a total of 17% of your total employee strength comes to the main gate in between 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM. These are the guys who prefer to suck up to a cigarette instead of their manager’s ass. These guys have the lung capacity of a 3 months old new born. Keeping in mind, company’s policy of retaining maximum percentage of their employees, I think my process improvement has a role to play here. As we all know, a guy in a cemetery can’t exactly be classified as a retained employee.

A2 Discussion points:

1. Has the past year been good/bad/satisfactory or otherwise for you, and why?
•    Sir, with all due respect to your company, if my last year had been any close to being even remotely satisfactory I wouldn’t have applied here. Although I cleared the interview round for the position on a Functional consultant in your company, I think I’d be able to add more value to company with this ‘transporter’ job instead.

2. What do you consider to be your most important achievements of the past year?

•    Last year, as part of an _______________ week, I designed a new age peddle powered transportation mechanism, henceforth known as iBike. The iBike is specially designed for the upper echelons of management pyramid. It has multifold benefits:-
a.)  The cupping mechanism provides 1 year live support for the no-balls.
b.)   The highly sensitive touch provides a much smoother ass for the lower management employees to kiss on.
c.)   Within the same tyre circumference, I managed to accomplish a 100% increase in spoke count which would   reduce the travel time to 50% when double the effort is exerted. Go figure! (Please find attached, relevant calculation in Appendix X, find X).
d.)   I also developed an iPhone app called ‘IPL Systematic traffic eXaminer (iSex), which predicts the traffic based on Live IPL Scores. This app takes direct feed from ‘IPL Fans’ app and predicts the movement of personnel during Strategic Time-out.

3. What do you like and dislike about working for this organization?

•    I like your guts to ask this fucked up question. OK, let me still reply to that! What I like about your organization is the set of HR rules that have made the life of every employee a living hell, which gives me sadistic pleasure and a realization, that Shit Happens. What I dislike about the organization, is…..eh..  You.

4. What elements of your job do you find most difficult?

•    Using substandard equipment for development activities. (Riding punctured cycles). Also, Support team is substandard and consistently misses their SLA by not maintaining tyre pressure at 5.8 NPM (Newton per meter). I will not tolerate this kind of lackadaisical approach in high visibility and high impact jobs.
5. What elements of your job interest you the most, and least?

•    The most interesting element of my job to is to modify the cycle-seat configuration and watch girls struggle with it. Cracks me up. The only problem is that I need to raise an AHD request before I could do so.

•    The least interesting element is that, I don’t foresee a scenario where someone would come up to me, hug me and say “you do a wonderful job out here”.  Yesterday, I raised a ServCentrale for this and got a reply “ YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR APPRECIATION”

6. What do you consider to be your most important aims and tasks in the next year?

•    I would like to see myself as Senior Associate Transport Manager within a year.

•    Going forward I would also like to see myself holding additional responsibility of personally handling the transport requirements of structurally fragile, aesthetically desired, non Y chromosome carrier. (a.k.a Maal Ladkiya)

7. What action could be taken to improve your performance in your current position by you, and your boss?

•    To start with you can provide me with a FUCKIN’ chair to sit down, damn it.

•    I would like to develop an iPhone app, which would be termed as ‘iBike’, for predicting traffic at various points in campus for utilization of transportation equipment. This would also help in enhancing the Social networking through the effective use of ‘Spot the ass’ algorithm.

8. What sort of training/experiences would benefit you in the next year? Not just job-skills - also your natural strengths and personal passions you'd like to develop - you and your work can benefit from these.

•    Sleeping is both my strength and personal passion. So, unless you are willing to add a couple of extra beds in the dormitory don’t get me started on this.


P.S. - The credit for writing the Appraisal form goes to Bechara Bandhu (Tweets here and blogs here)

(P.P.S. - Special Recommendation - Read the letter to Shiv Ji, his sole saving grace :-P)

Dread Lock

I just tweeted sitting on the shit pot that I was feeling prolific. And I was, I had two ideas that I could write on. One of them was something I have been trying to write from quite some time.

But today I'm not able. I'm filled with this all-consuming sense of dread. It is near paralyzing. I don't what's wrong but I sense that something is or is going to be, I just can't put my finger on it. And for this mega sense of dread I'm surprised that I slept well, both last night and in the afternoon. Something I'm not able to do for a little while now.

In retrospect I realize that probably women get this sense of dread a lot. My mom would call and ask "Where are you? Stay at home. I'm getting a bad feeling.". My girlfriend would get a maddening desire in the middle of the day to talk till she would be satisfied I'm ok and not indulging in some  risky activity. I always laughed at them, like I'm trying to laugh at myself right now.

But this is no laughing matter, I can see that. I'm listening to Metallica and dark rock ballads since morning. I've announced I won't drive at all today. I can't help shake off the picture of a woman lying in the middle of the road and people just driving around her. I can't help remember all the deaths I've witnessed. I just want to drink through this feeling. So in a couple of hours I'm going to start drinking like there's no tomorrow and hope there is one, which doesn't have this dread in it. Hope this drinking doesn't become the cause of the mishap that I'm thinking I'm premonishing though.

As one Russian fairy tale said (translated, I used to read them a lot) - "Raat kee baat kabhi sach nahi hoti, Kal subah dekhenge"

Idiot's Guide to be a Star at Work

You. Yes you. Are you an incompetent slob whose idea of a good days work in office is to change the toilet roll? Or do you think applying nail polish in office is too tiresome a work.  Are you the modern day Shidas whose touch turns everything to shit? Do you think that your life’s aim of able to grab a pretty money grubbing whore can be only be fulfilled by swindling a lot of money from your own firm? Do you have trouble getting up 12 and can’t keep your eyes open after 1 but still want to be the employee of the month?  Do you wanna be one-up on the son of a bitch who stole the corner office from you without his hard work? Are you all this and more? Did you have questions like how to suck up to my boss without gagging on it and more? If yes, then look no further, all the answers are here. With this guide you can be the star performer on paper without your butt leaving its beloved; the comfy seat.

Now always remember two things –

First your boss is also a human being; that means he likes his ego massaged, he likes presenting ideas in meetings which show that revenue can be increased to 20% and simultaneously employee morale can be increased to 18.5% by implementing a new idea. That you volunteering for water day makes his management look good somehow and the likes.

Second point, your team mates are also human. This means that they are also incompetent assholes who like to be get-by by doing minimal work. So you can get a lot of dirt on them which they have swept under the carpet. And most importantly they are as insecure as you, so when you say “Umm Rajesh there is problem with the document that you sent, can you tell me about it” it will bring the fuck ups they did tumbling out without you even reading the document.

So armed with this knowledge you can put this guide in action –

First things first, humans rely on their sense of sight the most, much above their common sense. The more they see you the better it is. Though this is the complete opposite in a sales job, but more on that later. So try to get a seat where your boss has a view on you and then stare in your computer all the time while playing Farmville or reading the ‘Sexy Poonam Pandey pics uploaded’. In between scan through a lot of documents bewildered like you are about to zero down on the Grand Unified Theory, it makes it look like you have a lot of work on your hands but not near enough time. If you can’t do both then stay on the phone at least with a solemn face so it looks like official business even if you are calling your Aunt in Muzzarfarpur. Though if in sales smile a lot and switch to – “Haan sir ho jayega, nahi sir aap to hamare preferred customer hai , itne bade order ke liye to main personally hee aaunga” and then explain your aunt later. Also best policy in sales is to leave office as soon as your boss comes in with your bag and come back just before when he normally leaves. This way you can catch up on afternoon siesta, buy grocery and chocolates for Gudiya and still seem like you are running around in the field all day.

While we are on the subject of time, remember like a good joke, unprotected sex and fake orgasms, timing is everything. Nobody cares who comes first to office, because nobody is there to see it. But people do care who leaves office last. Due to some bug left in human brain’s programming by god people seem to think that people to leave last are the most dedicated to finishing the task. Nobody seems to figure that morning 8 to 6 and 11 to 9 both constitute 10 hours, but everybody get the stinking look from everyone else when he or she plans to leave at 6. And it is best to leave after the boss, after he gives you that smug satisfied smile saying “I’m happy my Minions are hard at work”. Better still is that you send out all of your mails when you are just leaving, makes people notice that you are in office this late. And if you are facing an uncontrollable urge to get stoned mid-week or a hair-dresser appointment call or meet your boss and say – “I have to leave as there is an urgent family emergency.” Then go on for 15 minutes that how much work you did today and how much problems there are besieging the company currently. Makes you look responsible while not taking a dime of your back and making your boss forget the real issues. And what would really bake your cake is to tardy up your work on weekdays while you slept , drank and read “7 ways to find new job” through it and volunteer to work on the weekend for finishing the work.

Remember that like football matches, math exams and counting periods, in the end the numbers matter. Now it doesn’t have to be the number that actually reflects your work. If it would have been, you wouldn’t be reading this blog and would be thrown in the sewer where you really belong. So whore up the other numbers. Like the number of seminars conducted, number of client initiatives taken, the number of white papers published or the number SCR work undertaken. This is brilliant because it first and foremost looks good the appraisal form and secondly gets you respite from your real job which you suck at anyway. So volunteer for the next Poverty day parade, organize a conference for your dealers on the topic – ‘The use of fourth generation IT Tools to leverage consumer response for better customer psychic mind recall”. Prepare a white paper on “Social networking and Craner’s line: A Study” and ride the merry go round on more such bullshit.

Also remember that not what all Hollywood movie tell you is all crap. Being the yes man works wonderfully. And being the ‘Yes Sir’ man works even better. So buzz off with what the official policy says, always address your seniors and in some case your colleagues as Sir/Madam, Bhai/Didi , Dada or Jee or Garu or some other local equivalent. Nothing massages their ego like their humble servant bowing down to bask in the radiance of knowledge and experience. “Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, definitely yes sir” said on a phone call works like a charm. Of course that causes serious dent on your self-worth but I’m sure you never had much to begin with. And the hot tip of the day from Sarkari offices is - that always begin your official conversation with unimportant unofficial non-sense like your how was your last vacation, how are our parents doing etc etc, ”Bhabhi jee aur Pintu kaise hai ?” is probably the best line to start with something dreadful even when you have no interest in Bhabhi Jee or Pintu.  In some weird cosmic hyperbole, alien conspiracy kind of way it makes the other person feel that you connected to him.

But this is nowhere no way enough to be the star employee. For that you have to be a credit whore. That is hog up all the credit immediately as the work is done. Best way to do that is to join the team just before they are ready to deliver and get included in all the praise. But that might not be possible every time, so instead volunteer to collate and review the document and then surreptitiously sneak in your name as the author and send it to your boss with keeping the whole village in cc. Now ccing correctly is an art that is hard to master but pay well when you have. So send a lot of mails everyday with keeping your superiors in cc even if it is not relevant to them, it gives the illusion that you are always up to something, but remember it can also backfire if somebody does ‘Reply to all’ while pointing out your mistake. If that happens switch to a phone call immediately and ask him or her what’s wrong while keeping a sob story ready that it was error caused by lack of time or high pressure or because you confused it with something else or anything else. Just don’t get them to know the real reason, your stupidity. Works especially well if you are a girl or a newcomer. So tattoo this golden rule – Take all your bouquets on mail and brickbats on phone calls. And it is good to be sucker for appreciation mails, comes in handy at appraisal time.

Like the bible, Mayan calendar and the movie I am legend, start undertaking any project with the warning of apocalypse. Raise 10,000 issues right at the beginning stating why the work cannot be done, or at least in the given time frame. Doesn’t have to be real issues, slow computers, lack of AC Taxis available in  the city to meet clients, Civil war in Somalia and the flattening of the earth at the poles can be used as an excuse for not doing the work. Then ask for twice the time required and thrice the resources and then start tracking the market on moneycontrol.com and sit comfortably. Whenever asked the status after that, always say “It is going fine sir, we are showing good progress, and most of the work is done”. Start hauling ass when the deadlines approach, and start looking for somebody to pin the blame on, in case the work is not finished, which is a virtual certainty given your ineptitude.

In case nothing worked for you of the above, which can be only for two reasons viz. your manager is actually how a manger is supposed to be, that he can see through your bullshit. Or you suck at following simple advice like you suck at everything else. Then this certainly will. Now peel your eyes and read carefully this next piece of advice – KILL YOU SOCIAL LIFE. Which I am sure you have plenty of (It is my general observation that people who are the biggest screw ups at work are the most jovial and interesting people to know). Send your wife to her home for a long time, break up with your boyfriend, keep cancelling on your friends till they stop calling you, scold your kids so badly that they don’t wanna see you and get used to drinking alone. Soon you will see yourself working for longer in the office, attending calls at 11 in the night, meeting clients on the weekends, not taking any leaves in the office and being the darling of your boss. As you have nothing else to do than work and work and work and maybe a doctor’s appointment once in a while, for high blood pressure, ulcers, carpal tunnel or any other life style disease.

P.S. – If any of this works for you please send me some money from your next raise, I need money to go to Macau.

Find more Idiot’s guides for –

Understanding BSchoolers

Writing a book

Living a fabulous life on FB

Living among guys

But

You say you love me

And say you would take me true.

I like you and us. But

will you take my demons too?

You say you like me smile

And the pictures I with my words drew

Those are most pretty. But

will you take my sorrows too?

You say I take you to the sweetest spots

As you laugh under the yew

 I told you just the funny ones. But

will you hear for my tragedies too?

You say we make a handsome couple

And hang our pictures in purview

Oft though I rem and I cry. But

will you frame my red eyes too?

You licked your lips and smacked your tongue

When I cooked your favorite stew

That was a feast. But

Will you drink my poison too?

You embraced me as we sat,

By the fire just us two.

Ours was the warmth. But,

Will you hug my loneliness too?

You said I lit your fire

And heavy a breath you drew  

We were in rapture. Will you But

Moan, when I blurt Her name too?

So this is what I am to give

The laughter, the love anew,

The passion and with that. But

Will you take; Me too?

Catch 22

Co incidentally when I wrote the last post about the Night that I came across this paragraph in Catch 22  which I was reading that time;  the very next day. This reverberates what I wanted to say but much more beautifully in a circular way that only Joseph Heller was able to capture   -

"What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to blackguards for petty cash, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere."

Night

“Nights are too good to just sleep through them” – Anirudh Singh Chauhan

There is something strange and mystifying about the night. It makes the most ordinary sub-urban residences look like the den of most sinister crimes and fornication. Lonely street lamps cast long and dark shadows. And pipes become snakes, bushes become monsters and the old watchman is the cloak and dagger.

The night makes me realize the triviality of ourselves. Just as the street lamp is a small speck of light fighting a losing battle with the omnipresent darkness coming in from all sides to engulf it. Same is the case with us; we are just tiny specks in the big universe trying to sustain ourselves through the play of cosmic forces in whose plans we don’t even figure.

Then the sound of a wailing siren of an ambulance rips through the shroud of silence in the night; unrelenting and inconsolable, like a mother who just lost her child. Someone somewhere is dying. Someone somewhere is beating his wife in these nice quaint houses, someone somewhere is getting drunk to force himself on his girlfriend behind those pretty curtains, someone somewhere is wishing for his mother-in-law never to wake up from her sleep in those spic and span houses. Because that’s what man is. A predator; and night is the time for predators to come out. Night is to man what the grass is to the viper. The grass sways with the wind, is soft to touch and is easily trampled underfoot; but it the grass that hides the viper till he comes close enough to strike.

But that is only the part of the charm of the night. It shows you the pretty moon and twinkling stars which the sun hides from you every morning. But the night is also concealing, it respects your privacy. The night is quiet, it respects your peace. And most of it all it is adjusting; it only lets you see what you want to see. Somewhere in this night only a woman is sleeping in the embrace of her soulmate convinced that no sorrow can touch her. Somewhere in this same night a kid is burning the midnight oil, sacrificing his tonight convinced that it’ll bring him a better tomorrow. And somewhere through this same night a man is driving towards his loved ones convinced they’ll never be apart again. Night is to man what a shield is to a Knight. It protects him of the brutality and the sword of his day life.

But most of it all night is to man what day is to the earth. It makes us possible to make sense of him. There are no masks, no pretentions in the night. No makeup, no corsets, no suits to hide behind. Nobody to keep up the facade for, no approvals to take for his actions, no opinions to be formed by his speech. The night doesn’t conceal anything about a man, it reveals it. In the dark man is his true self.