Traversing through such signals, I have realized how the fabric of violence becomes palpable even in unconnected and unintentional acts, that, when viewed through time and proximity, give a glimpse of India today. Children with guns ape men at play, dense gates forcibly resettle neighbourhoods, cow vigilantes and anti-Romeo squads slay, harass and run amok patrolling roads infiltrated by fear, mistrust and unease. These systemic assertions are fortified by men of dominant castes who act as the repositories of the alleged utopia of the Hindu Rashtra. As these custodians communicate in a bubble of their hegemonic language, they knit a cultural epoch that concertedly sabotages the selves of the outnumbered, the outgunned and the outlanded. This ongoing work tries to address the semiotics of night as a nexus of masculine infringement, embodied among its custodians who surrogate for this fleeting landscape of gangrenous criminality. Following these optics of nation-building, eventually, I hope to realise how to demystify an India based not on violence or organic belonging, but on collective scripts of empathy.