On a Sunday, I watched the sun set. It had been a long time since I last did, and this was the closest I've come lately to seeing, or rather feeling it . I was in the delightful company of my friends for sure, but there were a couple of other things that amused me that day.
Did you notice the perfectly yellow sunflowers above? They didn’t know that I could cry looking at them, neither did the setting sun. As I soaked up all the remaining warmth of the day, they were standing there, covering the remnants of the 11th-century monument in the capital city, unaware that for me, this was a perfect blend of things that stir nostalgia, calmness and a desire to take a long, deep breath.
Sunflowers, sunset, and the Sun-day together would not have provoked me to ruminate so much about the day itself, had the last few hours not passed the way they did. Little did I know that I would be nudged a bit too much into the riddle of the Sun’s ability to be the source of all joy in our lives on earth.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
There had been a sudden plan to watch the movie, Project Hail Mary. My friends and I were planning to watch it for quite some time, and we finally found a pretty good reason to watch it: let’s avoid the afternoon sun, we thought. I would like to take the responsibility of lobbying everyone’s opinion for my selfish interests - of wanting to do absolutely nothing and yet staying in the warm company of friends.
Turns out, I was the second laziest person amongst the four of us. The first one, J, agreed to join and get the movie tickets only so that she could sleep in the theatre. M and P were pretty active, and could even go swimming in the middle of the day, or so they said. On our way to the theatre, M and P steered the discussion about our vitamin-D-deficient bodies, the need for the morning sun and proper circadian rhythms.
Avoiding the afternoon sun felt very ironic once I found out what the movie was about. If you haven’t watched the movie, it is about one Dr. Ryland Grace trying to save the sun’s diminishing luminescence to save the earth.
And there we were, taking that very thing for granted in real time.
The movie was about much more than the sun, and thankfully, it helped me purge my eyes and mind of the junk of a movie I had watched just two weeks ago. I also was finally excited to walk outside and relish the evening daylight in the greenest corners of the city.
And there they were - the bright yellow sunflowers, peeping at the setting sun, making my Sunday thrice as good, but wait a second!
It was the Sun’s day yesterday, question?
Amaze. Amaze. Amaze.
Shailja Chaurasia is a research scholar working on the social history of time.
We've grown up hearing that "it's the small things" that matter. That's true, of course, but it's also not - there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn't take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.
And now we're looking to you to also think about the small things - the joy that comes from a strangers' kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.
Read the series here.