Have you ever felt so sleepy as to fall
asleep with a jerk when you boarded the metro at Vishvavidyalaya, intending to travel to AIIMS, but got up to see
the automatic doors sliding shut at Sultanpur?
And when you climbed out at the next station, you were still enough sleep
deprived to go back to sleep in the AC environs of the AIIMS bound metro.
Yet, when I shared this unconformity with
my friends I wasn’t utterly laughed at as I had expected them to. What else can
you expect when the day itself ends not before 3 or 4 dead in the night? For
life in DU, there is night life like you don’t have in the day. Who has the time
to sleep? What are classes for then, if you have to miss all the fun sleeping
early (which means 1 at least)!! As soon as it is 7 in the evening, there is
regular shunting in all the localities spread all over Delhi that accommodates us students. Couples
say buh-byes only when it is 10 in the night and for all the amateurs; everyday
is a field day with countless single ladies dropping their handkerchiefs at
every small instance. There are Maggi shops, coffee shops and fruit juice kiosks
all around, and there is one generous friend to treat you almost every day.
Nights are livelier than days. There is the guitar to aid the lovely wind turn
musical and make the air moist with camaraderie. There is so much fun; time
passes by like water dripping when you shave. Hookah corners too count their
coins as the regular rush slowly fills in and the last drips of beer become empty.
When we sit to chat on our rooftops, there
churns out endless topics. How someone bashed someone else in a fight, from
silly topics to why it is scientifically dangerous to have cold water after
meals to how pretty the young lady professor looks. How someone called up to
fix a date with his second girlfriend, the moment his first one declined his
proposal for a movie next Saturday and how he manages back to back with both.
East, west, north and south of my PG are girls’ hostel (indeed an enviable residence!!).
It gives us ample opportunity to take note of feminine habits, the most conspicuous
being their over-extended time on cell phones. They must be laughing at us
often as we surreptitiously do at them. One of my friend suggested that they
pretend they are on phone calls when they are not, to keep themselves busy and
confuse others. Someone in my PG, who is a little myopic, wishes to buy a pair
of night-vision binoculars and has already started saving money for it.
Nights end only when the sleepier ones
leave for their beds or boyfriends leave to talk with their girlfriends in
solitude; leaving lesser number to argue nonsense. Sometimes unfinished debates
continue even the next day. Only one day in recent several weeks, I happened to
get up at 4 in the morning and that probably because I had fallen asleep with
my shoes and lights on. I then had the sudden urge to watch a movie that I had
kept downloaded (Ben-Hur) from a lot of time. When it ended it was 7 and I had
the perfect start to a day which otherwise never started before 9.30. Sometimes
it makes me wish I could turn into a zombie so that I never have to sleep. It
is such a waste. And yet we have to have adequate sleep unless we want to spend
the whole day yawning like hippos and spreading lethargy all around.
Falling asleep at untimely occasions
reminds me of a school time memory, which is still found unbelievable. The
National Anthem was on, and one of my friends had slunk down as if he had
fainted. When assisted, he said he had fainted. But later we knew the truth, he
had fallen asleep standing!!
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