The Palette

The festival of lights was here once again. There were electric lights all around the buildings; pretentious twinkling little stars in their own right. The impersonal focus lights of huge billboards were no match to their elegance. Strangely the air seemed charged and foggy – mostly due to zooming vehicles that raised clouds of dust while trying to outdo the rest in the traffic. People were hurrying to catch up the last few hours of fun the day offered.
The general excitement was palpable but nothing seemed so cheerful in her life.

She had been away from home once again on the day of festival. This was not new to her, somehow today her feelings closely matched those of an abandoned puppy in rain. The whole world had been unfair to her. Her colleagues had waved cheerfully while leaving for home; they had special cooking to take care of. Nancy aunty, the landlady, was on a trip to her hometown, the cook had applied for a two day leave. In general, the entire population had special and important things to do, except her. The choking sensation in her throat was so powerful that she thought she might pass out. She tried hard sending back those sticky tears that were eager to see the world. Damn, the tissues are not around just when you need them the most. She hated her life at that moment.
The phone rang. What an appropriate excuse to recover. The number looked familiar. She wondered why he was calling.

“Run upstairs to the terrace! Go, go, go...” he sounded delirious, denying her a chance to ask any questions. Amused and faintly irritated, she walked upstairs to the open terrace – to see the sky go crazy with colors and crackers: Modern pyrotechnics.
Sparklers, Starmines and Rockets; there were thousands of them. She could see sparklers branching out to smaller tinglers. Many Starmines burst simultaneously into a stunningly beautiful pattern of green, purple, yellow and red sparks – giving the sky an unnatural aura. There were so many patterns in them – star shaped, huge bowls, palm tree designs, what not. Rockets were speeding up like teenage traffic offenders, with a high-pitch shriek only to end up in a lame shower of flares. She looked around, her lovely brown eyes shining with wonder.

“Lady, can you see the huge red patch now? It’s opening up like an umbrella!” he had to shout his lungs out.
“Oh well… I can see so many …” she wouldn’t admit her excitement.
“Man, That green – pink cloud burst was awesome, wasn’t it? The pattern reminded me of Nancy auntie’s skirt,” he wouldn’t accept defeat easily. He went on and on with his silly, funny comments…
The heaven was a color palette of a mad, genius artist in a great hurry.
“Oh yeah! I see them!” she had finally warmed up. “Hey, but how come we see the same colors at the same time? Are you...”
She turned around to look at the tall building in the corner.
A small figure, up on the 9th floor was waving at her.
“Still in the office?” she had not expected him to be in town during this time.
“Yeah… but, so are you. Hey, Dinner at Koshy’s?”
“Make it 9.30 pm” She grinned and waved back.

While she bounded down the stairs with a spring in her step and a song on her lips, the world droned on.
Life wasn’t so bad after all.