3 AM

I tilted my head up at the inky sky to look for Orion's belt and remembered a whole lot of '3AM moments'.

3AM is a cusp in the urban human rhythm. Save, colicky babies, and the old mongrel fighting to retain territory from invaders, the world in general decides to drowse off, if not float through REM.

I rode home yesterday and felt like I was in a dream sequence of empty roads waiting for the rumble of traffic.

At 3AM, it feels as if the cityscape is gently exhaling. Rejuvenating from the pounding of a day bygone and bracing for the one ahead. There is a certain dip in the temperature which invites stupor.

I remember it well ever since I was preparing for my ICSE. It was the same while Chandu and I decided to open the last quarter of santra. When I walk out now to the comforting coolness of the night on the terrace... When I reach Dadar and fit myself into a taxi and nurture happy thoughts of snuggling with Josh after dinnner... When even the slave driven child labourers of the reataurant below the Ripon Street house manage to steal a moment of slumber before being beaten up an hour later... When the 3AM hunger gnaws at the innards... Never before or after. Only at 3AM does this hunger raise its demands.

It is time I went out to the terrace and took in the last vestiges of another 3AM...

Summer. Rain.

Lactocalamine on parched skin cannot compete with untimely rain in the middle of an unusually early and aggressive summer.

Riding through the undecided rain is hell. The still born slush makes the bike slip like drunk catfish. But then ... everything has a price.

I got out of the room and walked out to the terrace to experience the bliss of the sapping moments of night, melting into a coldish Pune morning.
The puddles on the quenched concrete, the shivering leaves of the almond tree, and the eucalyptus swirled in unison with the aroma of fresh rain.

A zephyr swishes the unseen mist-coldness around ankles. I can't seen the stars like a summer's night but a moon glowing bright behind some still cloud fluffs.

Such a joy. Rain.

Rat??! Drat!!!!

"So... How are you going to get rid of it?"

That was the "Ummm" moment inflicted by the girlfriend/wife soon after I confirmed that ratty IS there. En passant and as swift as a samurai sword's deft swish through the gullet.

Of course. It is is chewing up my bedroom door trying to get out.

Again these are moments when regret flashes through the mind. Catty would have been VERY useful. Sirrah! Go cat Go! Your next meal/game awaits within that pile under the bed.
Wishful thinking, with catty doing a 'salutation to the sun god' stretched supine next to the voice across the telephone.

Still does not answer the question though. True. Valid. And truly confounding.

Besides the rat does not like Hungarian sausage bait in a mouse trap. Damn!

Everytime I walk into the bedroom and ginderly open the door I hear the quick scurry and a jump onto something. I almost feel like I am intruding into the private captivity of the rat.

What remains to be seen is how we shall rid myself of my scurry friend...