As the last hint of orange falls beyond the faraway mountains and darkness shields us under its shackles, I sit at my table with a pensive state of mind. I look up and the ceiling stares back. I begin an unusual thought process in my otherwise stagnant mind… has light, the source of my motivation, merged with obscurity? Have the golden rays of the glorious sun hid behind oblivion? Did I take light too much for granted? Did it tempt me to do so? The room is closed. The walls feel like coming closer with every moment of apprehension. On such rare occasions, when I give light so much of thought, after split seconds, I feel like a moth to the flame. I ask for light. I crave for energy. I yearn for hope. I cry for direction. And then a violin starts playing from somewhere when the hero of the night appears. It bathes me in milky white rays and then I shower all my gratitude to the fluorescent lamp above my study table, for being what it is. Finally, I feel complete… as if good has won over evil. I sit back and salute light for a lightless world would be such a gloomy place.
And then at some point of time, hunger strikes hard. Being as lazy as a sloth, I usually prefer staying in my room to continue my life as a woeful survivor on powdered milk and cornflakes. But sometimes I do get rebellious and come out of the four walls. I walk down the short cut road, leading to the Mess. The trees at IIM L are well maintained, but at night, they look quite creepy. They bend front, back and sideways… dancing with the air in the darkness. I keep my concentration on every little detail on the road lest I may step on some reptile! Well, good things come in short packages and as soon as I am at the end of the shorter road… wow! I feel like out of a dark dungeon after days. The Not Just Tea stall dazzles in the yellow light… the Gossip n Bite in the white… the Nescafe shop… the Juice Corner… and the queen of all places, the Mess. And behind all the festivity, the glamour, the light, the food, the happy faces of the otherwise serious, nerdy or always-in-a-hurry crowd of students… behind what makes the night life of IIM L what it really is… are fluorescent bulbs and incandescent lights?(!!!!!!!!!!) Unbelievable as it may seem, a set of 5, 8, 11 and 14 watt energy saver lamps bring smile on the faces of hundreds of people in the campus. Small as they may look, they light up the campus that is spread over one hundred and eighty five acres of land. And there is light and love all around since “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that”.
This article first appeared in Campus Journos website where it had won the article-writing competition on What Lights Your Campus.
