Let here be light.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Do you take note of shaam ka twilight sky when the sun has gone but the light has not? Aaj ka din (today!) is an idyllic occasion to celebrate some select places in the megapolis that look divine under the evening’s fleeting light.

Make your way to any of the three foot over- bridges that span the multi-lane avenue in Gurugram’s DLF Cybercity. At this moment, the sky is pink, stained so by the light of the sun that had set moments ago behind a bunch of Millennium City high-rises. Indeed, the top half of one tower is virtually ablaze in that same pink.

In Hauz Khas Village, the monument-facing rooms of Airbnb multi-stories tend to be fronted with glass walls, so as to offer guests a dramatic display of the centuries-old monuments. (As a matter of habit, the Hauz Khas sun always sets behind the stone dome of Emperor Feroze Shah’s tomb.) These transparent walls freely let the light of the pre-dusk sky percolate into the rooms. On entering, the light aggressively floods the floor, and the beds and sofas are marooned in a pool of pink.

In Paharganj, the light of the evening sky primarily targets the crowded Lakshmi Narain Street, giving it a halo. The luminosity is so powerful that even the air’s otherwise invisible dust occasionally sparkles.

In Gurugram’s Old DLF Colony, the evening light falling on the Krishna Temple enters the main shrine through the pores of a stone jaali, scattering on the marble floor like pink beads.

And last, but foremost, here’s to the memory of w light in post-sunset Lodhi Garden (see photo, snapped one evening last week)

These days, around 6pm, an almost imperceptible haze spreads across the sprawling acres of the garden. Despite the pollution, one side of the sky generously gets smeared in purple and pink. This unstable variation of the light remains in harmony with the stable shades of the garden’s trees and tombs. And for a handful of miraculous minutes, as the pink takes over more of the sky, the Lodhi Garden panorama acquires sacred sublimity, coalescing into an impromptu festival of light. Happy Diwali.