Lights off, Lights on
5 min read
Published July 25, 2025
On a damp, jasmine-scented evening in a quiet South Indian town, two boys seek mischief in the shadows, flipping switches and peering into the private twilight rituals of an old teacher. But what begins as a prank unravels into something deeper: a meditation on patience, resistance, and the slow hardening of human nature. As Satya confronts the unshakable stillness of Mr. Narayan, he is drawn into questions of memory, learning, and the illusion of growth. Can the self ever change, or are we all just trees that refused to bend when we were saplings?
An ink wiped white kerchief spread out across the sky, the last traces of twilight. A single halogen street lamp flickered to life, its yellow glow buzzing against the encroaching night. The evening drizzles with a lingering scent of damp earth. It was a feeling that could be said that nature was alive. The mingling faint aroma of parijatha flowers (night-flowering jasmine) blooming from a nearby tree just enhanced it even further.
Evenings were fearful, long walks, mostly in darkness, no street lights in most of the places, but the moon is comforting, stars along with it. 7:30pm was the deadline for the boys to get back to their senses and start running home. Home is where the terror is, mom would put Satya out of the house, he must stand there until dad comes home, and then his belt speaks. 8pm was THE hard deadline. Anytime later, even his tuition master’s scientific knowledge cannot explain the consequences.
Satya wasn’t ready for the night to end.
Toddlers don’t sleep when they are supposed to, they would do all the naughty stuff they could to spend their last bit of energy before hitting the bed. Humans don’t grow up, age is just an illusion that we tell ourselves to comfort our existential crisis.
Even at this age, Satya’s fingers twitched with unspent energy. Mischief in his eyes. “Let’s do something fun.” His voice is barely more than a drop of a leaf from a tree.
Ravi narrowed his eyes suspiciously, “Like what?”
The main switchboard outside the teacher’s house, a new idea, to observe what old people do when nobody is around them. What would they do to keep themselves occupied?
Not even realizing that the prank that Satya is coming up with, would be an easy catch. Yet, teenagers would do anything to get that kick of happiness by making fun of everything.
Satya explains his plan.
Ravi sighed. “We’ll get busted.”
Satya grinned. “Only if we get caught.”
They both were halfway to their home, Satya put his cycle onto a mound of sand nearby a construction site, locked it. Hyped “Let’s go.”
Ravi put his cycle too and left with him.
“Time for some fun right? Hope we don’t get caught, my mom will kill me.” Ravi shivered and uttered.
These 2 intruders switched off the streetlamp near the lonely house, nobody would notice, nobody walks through these streets past this time. Not even dogs, they fear the fox that was in the nearby farms. Both of them must be running to their home by now, but they both jumped upon the compound silently, Ravi walks first towards the main switch board, but Satya flicks the MCB in the main switch board, and the whole world collapses into darkness.
The pupils in their eyes get adjusted to reveal the light from the moon slowly lighting the room, the old man walks slowly towards the cupboard in the next room holding his stick and wall. His white shirt, dhoti and his shiny silky white hairs lit up the rest of the room with reflection. A flick of a matchbox is heard, the boys could only hear that, the light burst and went away, and slowly began to light up the whole room. Mr. Narayan walks into the room, puts the candle on the table, and sits on his chair and continues to read his book.
Satya thought, why would someone read at this age? Why would he consume so much information when he knows it will be gone in the next few years along with him? All while watching from their usual peaking window.
Ravi whispers flatly annoyingly, “I hate reading books, I would never do that at this age, I would probably play some video games to have some fun.”
Satya flicked the electricity back on, and came back to the window to take a look at his teacher.
Mr. Narayan got up from his chair, blew the candle to die. Sat in his chair and picked up his book and continued to read.
Ravi says, “Let’s go, there’s nothing much to see. He is just always reading.”
Satya flatly shows his palm, goes to the main switch and flicks it off again.
Ravi hushes, “What are you doing? Enough!”
Satya shows his palm once again signaling to have patience.
After regaining the sense of light with moonlight, Mr. Narayan adjusted his glasses, and got up from his chair patiently, and lit the candle once again and went back, picked up his book and continued.
Satya couldn’t take it, problems are given in order to have courage, to fight, to solve, but the teacher doesn’t fight it, he doesn’t question it, he is very patient. That makes him feel uneasy, the teacher keeps repeating "Everything happens for a reason", which is mere illusion to believe in, to hold onto something without spiraling down into madness.
Ravi pulled Satya, switched on the lights and dragged Satya to jump and leave. He felt it was enough to play and in fear that they both would get caught.
While Satya is being dragged by Ravi, he changes his voice to sound like a big man and says out loud “You think you know everything, but you know nothing. Nothing at all.” and jumps compound and runs away.
Ravi is scared now, he feels that he is going to hell for this. Mr. Narayan asks loudly “Boys? Don’t run.”
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