The Wake

My friends raise eye brows, my parents have given up explaining the negative effects, my cousins pray I don’t share the room with them, my aunt complains and my brain does funny things in the morning (ok that’s an exaggeration) when I once again commit the crime of sleeping late. Sleeping late by my standards is like 4:00 in the morning when I can hear the early birds chirping in the summer months (n still sleeping in winters) and when I know that I have exactly three and a half hours to get my ass off the bed and start the day with a jarring morning (which smoothens out as I sip coffee in office). Yes, the morning shower jolts me into reality and I am ready in no time all prim and proper with sparkling eyes but there are times when I have to try my best to stifle the yawns, specially when my boss extends my job list and I know I have a long day ahead. But that doesn’t stop me from keeping awake the same night. May be I’ll sleep earlier, lets say 1:00 am.. But never before that. And how I look forward for weekends when my mornings roll into afternoons and I open my eyes to the mouthwatering whiff wafting through the kitchen and I know its time I get up !
I don’t really think its insomnia. (Did you know- 64 million Americans suffer from insomnia and women are 1.4 times more likely to suffer from it than men. Why? I mean is that even a question? Really? Haha..) But yes over the years I have developed this habit of staying up late. Whether it was because of studying well into the night and getting up late during preps before board examination or reading away novels at night and waking up giggling with cousins during vacations, staying up late has become a part of me. (Unless, of course, I am traveling or sick tired.) I have often tried to go off to sleep on time. And I admit that if I want to I will go to sleep at around 10-11pm. But then I think at night I get the best of me. All new ideas, new thoughts would come up. I will suddenly remember something important and pull out my laptop and I start typing vigorously. All my poems happen at night. Very few may be 1% during day time. For me the quiet of the night gives me time to think and write my thoughts. I unleash myself. Few of my nocturnal friends also experience the same effect. Shane comes up with new songs and music on his guitar, Aditi plans her next tour plan, Mahesh cooks up another article for his magazine. So it actually works for few people. Does it work for you?
Its also the time to watch some great stuff on TV. This article in HT specially drew my attention today in which Nivriti Bhutalia gets tired of her biological clock and watches TV the insomniac way. Channels like Discovery, HBO, Star Movies have lineups worth watching. If nothing much you could catch one of the back-to-back series of F.R.I.E.N.D.S which would keep you warm enough laughing and drift you off to sleep in no time.
I think its all about an individual and how it fits him or her. Gone are the days when “early to bed and early to rise” was the discipline in every house. Now with new lifestyles and newer job profiles rules have been customized. Otherwise,what will happen to our BPO employees in that case and the 24- hr pharmacies and our poor old chowkidaar to name a few. Why not give him some company and go the “Jaagtey raho” way??
So tell me:
What kind are you?
What do you do when you go to sleep? Read a novel? Listen to music? And stay awake doing nothing? Or whisper sweet nothings to your beloved? Or is it that you are reading this article and laughing to your self and wondering- “Should I reply?”