It is perhaps after ten years that I treated myself with the best gift I possibly could get in a long long time. YES! It’s definitely what you think it is!

I looked up above my head to see a sky full of shimmering glitters winking down at me. I revisited my long lost friend. He ever so effortlessly recognized me with the same tenderness it had over a decade ago. It is in the younger years that the sky endears us and it continues to look after us even when we have erased the least of the traces left of it.

To a child the mammoth sky, huge and gigantic, unfathomable and a galaxy within million other galaxies, a system unknown always filled him with hopes of vastness, of dreams people could not think of, strength unimaginable. He becomes the master of his universe.

Remembering those days when you craned your neck far behind till the neck lines appeared and unblinkingly you would gaze up at the endless stories that you and the sky shared. I have a vague memory of looking up at the night sky in times of joy, in times of despair more often than not. Faint smiles could have crossed my lips or may be perplexity in my brows. But the distinction is as I grew up I looked up to the same sky with emotions different.

The smile has been replaced by seriousness. The perplexity and muses probably have taken a different course and are more of a frown now. The night sky, a humble friend as ever always welcomes me to look him in the eye. Man to man.

It taught me something I didn’t understand initially as a kid, something that didn’t quite hold me from within -- that despite of how great a person I become, I would never be the son of Poseidon or Poseidon himself even if I imagined to. In simple words regardless of my position, stature or status I need to learn to be humble.

When I looked ahead standing in my balcony, the buildings were all I could see, stretching into the endless column of brick to brick manipulation, flapping their wings but resentfully. I shifted my gaze a little farther and fortunately stumbled upon a twinkling star shining brighter than its counterparts.

A comrade I neglected for as long as time runs and who I am surely to ignore for the greater part of my life except for a few nights, like these when I would find solace in the love and tenderness of its arms wrapped around me in a bear hug, the cool breeze whistling past my ears carrying a message I am yet to understand fully.

It’s a chaotically busy life that lets us forget where we truly belong. Worried we stay up all night and all night long our friend waits for us patiently, waiting for us to talk it out, whatever is creating a warmonger emotion. Never do we realize, what these alignments of sturdy bricks are keeping us from.

Playfully I resumed to the age old exercise of jotting down the stars to trace geometric figures, I traced a perfect triangle. Tranquility! Success! My greatest achievement! I felt like the king of the world. I stood there with my lips pursed, cracking a faint smile of satisfaction as I turned back thanking my old friend for the eternal support it showed all the way out.

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