Sleep

This post is a result of deep agony, a state of acute ‘sleeplessness’, and a burning desire to call it a day and crash... but I’m not giving in yet... I’m going to fight it, and I’m going to write...

Let’s start out by doing some basic math. Don’t worry. I’m getting to my point.

So they say that you can go without food for a week at a stretch and still be breathing (if not more)... but one week without a wink of sleep, and chances are that you’ll be lulled into sleep forever.

Normal people, sleep for 8 hours a day.
If 8 hours of sleep= alive and kicking
And 0 hour of sleep= fatality
Then well, you know, mathematically, I’m half dead.

Some six months back, when I started this blog, I didn’t realise the tremendous power of foresight that I posses. I thought ‘Memoirs of a sleepless city’ was a harmless title, a nostalgic whiff of fragrance, a thing of the past. But take it from me, and hear me out carefully, when I say- there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, romantic about being sleepless. If I knew the title would back fire on me, like this, I’d think twice. Alas... It’s too late...





This is how it happened...

The first seven days are exciting. Yes, this is how life in a b-school is supposed to be, isn’t it? Going down to the all night cafeteria, at 2’o clock, sneaking a smoke in the loo, and pre-reading the first chapters of Kotler.

Week three comes, and the situation is a little different. The classes from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening have started taking a teeny-weenie toll on you. You are struggling to finish your case study assignment, and you don’t have the slightest clue about what ‘Cooper Fabrics should be doing to get their sales up’, leave apart a contingency plan. Before you could get Cooper Fabrics out of the mess, you realise it’s four o’clock.

Enter second month, and you are well into the methodical madness. Now, you have a new problem on hand. This thing called an FCQ (Don’t bother about the full form). So, it’s this weekly test. But like every other thing in a b-school, this one too, comes with a twist. You don’t know out of the 17 odd subjects (Yes, 17 it is... it’s not a typo), which test you are going to take tomorrow morning. So, you try and do some methodical guessing, some furious elimination and finally a few coin tosses, and boil it down to 5 subjects, for the night. By the time, you finish with all this, it’s already 10’o clock and your eyes are screaming for some rest. But mind over matter. So, you smoke profusely, stay awake, juggle with 3 subjects, fail to understand all three of them and turn to the fourth for refuge, only to realise its 6’0 clock. An hour later you sit in the exam hall and watch the 10th subject on your well-educated guess list, sitting pretty in form of a question paper. You curse yourself, not for not studying, but because you stayed up all night... But Alas! It’s too late.

And so I say, and I beg, and plead, and scream out in my head for some sleep. I can do with some. Okay, perhaps, a lot. A whole day... or a whole week... Yes... I’ll settle for a week.
But then, when you’re in a place like, where I’m right now, you know that your plead/ prayer/ demand is falling on deaf ears. You know, that after finishing this post, you have to get back to doing your FinAcc assignment.

And so I resign, give up, surrender. And a couple of lines from one of my favourite song play out in my head.

This one’s dedicated to her... The ever elusive enchantress, the one who can take away all your worries, the one who comes to bed every night, the one I miss so badly that it hurts...

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nail, she makes me wait
And I’ll wait without you....
With or Without You...