All our sunsets

A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me if I remembered the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen, because she had just seen the one she thought would stay with her for the rest of her days, high up in a mountain range. My first instinct was not to ask her to send a picture, but to describe it for me. Interestingly, she hadn't taken any picture of that particular sunset anyway, just as I didn't take any of mine. And today serendipity had it that another friend sent me a picture of the sky from her house, not at sunset but the sun clearly sunk behind the clouds, illumining them from below. The trees and the rooftops already dark. Several different types of clouds clog the sky. I could picture it for you, or include the picture, but that's not my point.

I've always been interested in those moments when we choose not to immortalise them with a picture, but rather with our senses. I didn't write “eyes”, but “senses”, and I think the crux of the matter is precisely here. Those moments are infinitely more profound when we deliberately choose to live them through, and fix them in our memories, however flimsy and transient this repository might prove over time. We forget, we correct, we transform, but perhaps not as much as we think.

This is some sort of a wager against time which we do when we record the greatest sunset we'll ever get to capture with our senses. We choose what gets to stay with us, and rather than a still picture which will be marvellous and will invariably make people think of their greatest sunset, we can describe what it was for us, why it was the greatest, and how the reds, the oranges and the yellows were like a shimmering explosion of colours in the entire sky, as if the world had come to an end and this apocalypse was mesmerising. It was the most amazing spectacle and we felt something inside us being moved to tears, or serenity. Perhaps it even changed us, who knows. It will be marvellous to tell, wonderful to share and will invariably remind our friends of their greatest sunset, or sky, or moonscape.

A snapshot of what we saw may be a more potent trigger for our brains, but those long minutes, perhaps hours, we spent watching this sunset have changed us much more than a picture can ever tell. Because ultimately what my two friends wanted me to see is how happy or serene or nostalgic they were. The sunset, the sky, appealed to something within them, they struck a chord which reverberated and filled them with an overwhelming feeling. And we bonded even more over a sunset we could never see with our own eyes, but we sure felt that sunset running along our spine.

Sure, we can't share a mental sunset with our friends, can we. We have no physical proof of its existence, haven't we. Or perhaps I just did. Its effect on us is what we choose to narrate, because it was inscribed in time. This sunset happened at a particular moment in our life and we soaked up as much as our senses would allow us. The chill in the air, the hotness of the sun-beaten stones, the light breeze of the incoming tide, the sounds of seagulls, perhaps music coming muffled from a party nearby, or perhaps the warmth of the tea in our cold hands. All of these contributed to making this the grandest, most memorable sunset of our lives...till the next came, or not

I was about to wrap up this post when I thought of something. In some weird way, these sunsets are like last words. I was reminded recently of how it's important to always say something meaningful when we part with our friends, and family. We love them, we had a great time, we'll definitely call them soon, thanks so much for coming. I don't remember what my mom's last words were to me, but there's no doubt it was something trivial. Instead, I have the luxury of getting to choose what I remember of her, I deliberately chose which sunset is the greatest for me because I have the clearest of memories of that particular moment, which no amount of pictures could even come close to brush. This sunset, which no one will ever witness, sure vibrates with people when I tell them the story. This sunset, as with all our sunsets, deserve to be immortalised, because at one point who knows, we may want to share them.