✨“Sometimes it is the darkness that I miss the most.”✨
That evening began at the Vizag Tirupati Balaji Temple. The sun was setting as I sat on the steps of the temple after darshan, having a mouthful of prasad. Still in formals, with a tote bag, hands folded, head bowed—heart oddly steady. I meditated for a while next to the stambh. The ambient sounds of winds blowing and the chanting of “Om Namo Venkatesaya” playing on loop—blissful and soul-stirring…
I carried a quiet gratitude back into my chest.
The 59th Indian Orthodontic Conference, Vizag, concluded that afternoon—successfully, smoothly. My lecture on leading a comprehensive cleft team as an orthodontist was well appreciated and applauded by one and all. Conversations wrapped up, smiles exchanged, hands shaken. By evening, despite feeling accomplished and appreciated, I wasn’t ecstatic, nor jittery. Just calm. Deeply, peacefully quaint. The kind of happiness that doesn’t shout—only rests.
I didn’t even know, until I reached Vizag for the conference, that there was a Tirupati Balaji Temple by the same TTD trust of Tirumala in Vizag—it was inaugurated in 2022, according to the internet. And from the moment I heard of it, I was longing for HIM… to get darshan of Venkateshwara. I decided to take the manuscript of Phir Baazgasht that I was carrying with me.
I showed him the manuscript of Phir Baazgasht that day — my second echo… my quieter truth!
A whole universe of waking up from one-sided love, handed over in silence to the one at whose doorstep it had all started in August 2024.
On my way back to the hotel from the temple, I took a detour to Rushikonda Beach, crossing GITAM University. I soaked my feet in the waves and the sand and let nature do its magic. A few young couples asked me to take photos of them in the water. It was dark already—the last evening of November 2025.
Shortly afterwards, the drizzle thickened as I got up and began to walk back to my hotel—a distance of around 2.5 km. Vizag breathed differently in the rain. The road was soft and fragrant with fallen Chhatim (blackboard) flowers, one of my favourite fragrances—so I picked a few up, unconsciously, instinctively… like one gathers stray thoughts after prayer.
Back in my room, I placed them in a bottle by the bedside. From the French window, I watched the Bay of Bengal stretch into the night. The next day’s Araku trip in the Vistadome train shimmered ahead, with special company and quiet anticipation tucked somewhere in a corner of my heart. But in that moment, my heart was already full—of love, of blessings, of fulfilment, of gratitude.
And then, as if the universe cued it perfectly—
the rain, the temperature, the sea breeze balanced into harmony…
and the current went out…!
For a few suspended seconds, my eyes adjusted to the vast darkness of the ocean. No city. No room. No roles. Just me and the breathing sea. I took a slow, moist, fragrant breath—wet soil, Chhatim flowers, salt in the air, memory in the lungs. I hoped the darkness would stay for a while… As a civilisation, we have ruined it with light pollution. The dark, vast expanse of the ocean looked magnificent under the rain…
And just before that feeling could fully settle into my soul…
The lights returned.
And with them — reality.
Too stimulating, overwhelming and too bright!
Some moments arrive, only to make you understand the value of the one gone by!
When the night is lonely and the heart is quaint…..
That’s when I flipped my phone out and wrote—
“Sometimes it is the darkness that I miss the most ❣️”
Journal entry
30th November 2025, 09:04 PM
Vizag
Dr. Krishnendu Chatterjee
Orthodontist | Mindfulness Coach | Author
