Magic Hour

What do you do when your life slows down? How do you live when you wake up in the morning and have nothing important to do? Do you watch television? Or read a book? Does that satisfy you? Watching or reading about the great deeds of other people while you’re twiddling your thumbs, forgotten by the world? I’m asking, coz it bugs the hell out of me. My life wasn’t always like this. Until a few months ago, I had a very eventful life. There was action, there was adventure. There were challenges to overcome and ill wishers to defy. Things weren’t always good. Sometimes they were bad, really bad, but never was it uneventful, never was I a spectator on the sidelines, watching others dance the dance of life. I always threw myself into the thick of things, for better or for worse. I was never one to hang around the back of the crowd.

But that was then….this is now. Now I wake up in the morning and know that it doesn’t matter if I jump out of bed or close my eyes and sleep again. I drag my feet around the house, read the paper, watch the news. Or I read another book. I watch and read about the world going on in growing frustration, the frustration of a guy who wants to play the game and not watch it being played from the shadows of the galleries.

Everywhere around me, life goes on feverishly. Friends get married; go for higher studies, starts new jobs. Me, I wrote my supplies and haven’t gotten my result yet. I’m neither here nor there. Everyone and everything seems to be racing towards something. Even the earth starts the day racing against time to finish rotating around its axis within 23 hours 56 minutes 04. 09053 seconds. But me, I fall asleep in a chair reading a book and it doesn’t even matter.

But then someone up there gave me a lifeline. Basketball at 5 p.m. I know you’re wondering what the big deal is, about a bunch of jobless guys in their early twenties playing ball in the evening. But to me and I think to the rest of our brotherhood of the ball, it’s nothing short of a new cause in life. Maybe not a big one, or one that is important to anyone else but to us, it’s something to look forward to every day. Every evening, I put on my track pants and a sleeveless t-shirt, lace up my sports shoes tightly and ride like the wind on my bike to get to the court by 5 P.M. The leaf covered basketball court at C.M.S college is my Colosseum, although I usually enter by jumping the compound wall and the only audience we have are the tall old trees around the court. There are no lettered jerseys, no neon scoreboards and the referee system is mostly based on arguing skills, but we are damn serious about it all.

For 60 minutes a day, I get to beat myself up trying, I get to run and jump even when my muscles scream in protest. I get to fall flat on my face and gain the pleasure of getting back up again. I play when the weather is nice or when it’s raining like hell. When my ankle gets injured, I play with a limp. When I have a cold, I drink chicken soup and come and play. I have a target now - a circular ring around 18 inches in diameter. And I have challenges to overcome, like when I run and dodge and dribble & pass and receive passes to take the ball almost to the basket and then someone in the opposition whisks it away and flies to ours. Do I stand there and try to catch my breath and preserve my energy for a more hopeful cause or do I go after them at full throttle with what breath I have left........And people will definitely notice if I fall asleep, coz I’m not a spectator anymore. In our little world, I have the opportunity to win glory and accolades (at least on the days I play well).

Every morning the sun rises and people go to work, kids go to school and college, birds fly from their nest. And every evening, as the sun sets, they go back home or wherever they go after a days work. But there’s a time of the day, when the sun hasn’t completely set, though it is low on the horizon, a time of the day when the sun’s rays are weaker, but still not completely snuffed out. It’s called magic hour. Photographers call it that because it’s the time of the day when the light is perfect for photos. But I call it magic hour for a different reason. Coz for that one hour, I’m not forgotten anymore. For those 60 minutes, I get to make a statement, I get to prove to myself that the day may not be mine anymore, but twilight is still mine. The new dawn may not be here yet, but magic hour is mine. For 60 minutes a day, I am alive again.