Darkness retrieves its last and frailest of tenterhooks in haste, fearing the irradiation of the solar glow when the earth begins its next cycle of invocation of the Sun God. An audacious mortal I am, I don’t let such celestial events mark the beginning of my day .An arrogant offspring of Earth I am , I never participate in my mother’s invocation nor do I witness the sun god rise and shine, rather I summon the westward traveling God to shine one me, making him witness my rise, and allow him to mind his own journey.. I chose to mark the beginning of my day..
By the time I receive the first leg of consciousness , I hear my father’s transistor, devotedly tuned to the radio frequencies of AM, bringing in some morning news. I think the edges of the voice of the news reader are jagged, find my own discovery strangely funny , snooze the alarm and doze off. Then I regain my second leg of consciousness, I realize the half year toddler in the adjacent flat has woken up now and wailing full pitched. I wonder why the kid just doesn’t ask what he wants and fall again into my abyss of bliss. Then at last I hear a strange , heavy and high speed gargling sound , when the bank manager uncle in the opposite flat cranks his old Fiat and rolls of for the day.I now wake up with some mild panic and guilt .Ready to shine.
My sleek and meek Sony Ericcson, which doesn’t really add any pride to its owner the other times, proves to be a precious thing for me during this ordeal in the morning. It begins it alarm sweetly , and I by a natural subconscious impulse , just snooze it. (alarm wisdom: snooze to sleep now and wakeup to regret later. lol) Infact I have got so used to this act that I don’t even remember snoozing it , somehow it happens. But the thing, having really been designed keeping in mind slothful souls like me, attempts its alarm again after letting me sleep for 9 minutes. But being the persistent sleeper I am , I snooze it again and my precious thing does it again and again after giving up finally after its fifth attempt. By this time, I am awake. On weekends , however I put its misery out altogether , disabling the alarm, and indulge myself in what might seem like an eternal slumber till my clock hands arrive at a watch maker’s “aesthetic insignia”.
If sleep is declared as an art form , I would already be a master in it. “Sleep is no mean art , for its sake one must stay awake all day” - a nameless wonder of the world wide web says, well whatever he/she means, being awake is no mean art either.I observe this based on the hide and seek I play again with somnolence post lunch. I think most of the population out there, doing a typical desk job, will agree on this. Atleast I am not alone in this regard. When you are down with your favourite meal in your tummy and settle at the workplace, drowsiness slowly seeps in . It’s a physiological wonder how when a bustle of activities in the form of breaking, making and siphoning off nutrition begins in digestive system , the consciousness begin to wither off.
Reposition yourself , shift your base, crack your knuckles , but nothing will work. Eyelids seem to drag downwards by invisible forces, peace and tranquility spread over the wide expanse of nothing , flushing away any remnants of cognizance, and at this point ,consciousness being at a complete state of eviction screams for one final time, trying to repel away these forces and SNAP you..The whole process takes about a few seconds but repeats again and again. It is finally put to an end, sometimes, by walking down the corridor to the cafeteria and gulping down a cup of coffee.
During college we used to munch pepper to keep ourselves awake. But still it didn’t relent. We got so used to it and that we continued to feel sleepy anyway. Also munching peppers so often might cause ulcers it was said. What was not said was it will cause some burning sensation whenever you heed to the calls of nature, so we stopped it. One of our professors used to conduct special classes in early mornings and a bunch of us were regularly late. After reprimanding us, he suggested an idea to rise early. “Plan to do the task you like most at the beginning of the day” he said , “that way you will wakeup early". Well we couldn't explain that the task of waking up far outweighs any other task we would like to do.Besides we didn't have any likeable activity worth mentioning to pursue.Waking up on time was the most difficult thing.Laplace transforms and Fourier series we could handle.
.. Continued in comments