What is night and day? One is dark and urges us to be reclusive, while the other is bright and dictates that we interact with others. Are these two distinct worlds created by the Supreme Being with a particular purpose? Do the two worlds of night and day make us think of who we really are? SEEMA MUNIZ muses on the stark difference between these two twin worlds through which we pass – day after day and night after night

The difference between night and day is the difference between being by ourselves as opposed to ourselves with others. I am always fascinated by the natural disparity between the two acts.

While the day offers us a forum  and instinctive guidelines to move through it in a quasi mechanical way, the night banishes all rules, presenting us with a stage where everything is almost sacred and intimate…our sunlit hours claimed by others during the day, are avenged by the personal sense of eternity bestowed upon us in the darkness…the rigidness of shapes melts giving way to a malleable space…thoughts have nowhere to centre themselves around, since every fistful of that darkness presents a new centre.

Seema Muniz

The day shrouds us in a blanket of self-importance, smothering us with countless chores deliberately labelled as ‘crucial’. But the nights expose us to ourselves as we are: in our rawest form, naked, alone, empty and vulnerable.  Yet, it is a transformative realisation…it gives us courage to be ourselves, unencumbered by the possibility of over-exposure. 

Dividing the space into shapes and colours, and light and shadows, the day purposefully busies itself in etching the horizon line between the earth and sky. Night on the other hand, dissolves every divisive space into one stretchable conglomerate, packs every possibility into one enormous box and rattles it violently, letting it hurtle across infinite vistas of rolling darkness. While the activities of the day ensure  seperation from ourselves, night endeavours to unite us to the forgotten depths of our being.  

If days equate to an ‘Open Sesame’  of Ali Baba fame, leading us to to the cave of earthly temptations, nights set us free with the eternal magic of Abracadabra

Seema Muniz, a feature writer with the Times of India group in the nineties, is an avid reader and educationist, who homeschooled her son until tenth grade, while drifting between New York and Alaska with her family. She is also an artist, with a few solo and group shows in Albany, NY, to her credit. 

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