Of
all the reasons that drove me to choose a graduate college away from home,
living in a hostel was the most compelling one. It has been two years since I
stepped into EME College’s hostel accommodation and all I can say is: Hostel
life has its own merits and demerits, as probably, more or less, every other
thing in this world has.
When
my youngest sister was born, my mother used to tell us that a child is just
like a computer with an empty hard drive. Whatever you feed in its memory, it
stays there forever. But my mother’s theory didn’t work quite well on me for my
hard drive had some pre-installed programs. My inability to grasp the fact or
if I put it honestly, my disapproval of the fact that night was made by the
Lord of both worlds as a time to sleep was something I was born with. My
maternal grandmother (May Allah grant her Jannah)
often told me that as a baby, my day used to begin when the clock ticked
twelve. I would keep my poor mother awake with me all night and slept only when
the sun was about to shine. The day was well spent sleeping as I had no classes
of Probability and Statistics to attend when I was half a year old.
As I
grew up this habit stuck and every night the last thing I ever wanted to do was
sleep. The whole concept of sleeping early at night sounded absurd to me and I
seriously considered it an attack on my personal likes and dislikes when I was
ordered by my mother, in her distinctive style “Foran se pehle so jao!” ,to
close my eyes and sleep at ten sharp.
Hostel
life was a blessing. Never in my life had I been so happy with the fact that I
had the complete liberty to sleep as late as I wished to, or never sleep at
all! I and my laptop computer would spend sleepless nights in our cosy bed
watching movies together, reading books together, and writing blogs together
(that’s the closest I have ever been to romance)... My eyes would water when
they gave up with their consistency of keeping them wide open at 3 o’clock in
the morning, my mind would scream to me, even verbally abuse me to shut it down
for just a while, my head would buzz and swing, but my will power kept me awake.
But
dear reader, I hear your thoughts. You say that I am a fool. God made the night
to sleep. You would also quote here that famous saying “Early to bed, early to
rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” But please my precious reader,
hear what I have to say. Sleepless nights have been of such wonderful help to
my thinking process that I can’t help denying your arguments. I write, and the
best of the articles and blogs I have written were jotted down after
midnight. If you like this piece of writing so far, then let me reveal
that the digital clock at the bottom right of my computer screen says that it’s
1:15 am. Come with another argument you say? Well, I like to think about life
and the finest conclusions drawn by me were while I used to walk down the road
late at night, alone. Nights are very mysteriously quiet and calm. They make
you concentrate hard on stuff that need deep thought.
But
if you scroll a bit up... Ok don’t do it let me quote it here for you “Hostel life has its own merits and
demerits, as probably, more or less, every other thing in this world has.”
Consider the latter part of this sentence for a while.
I-don’t-want-to-sleep
part has a counterpart and it goes: Got-to-sleep-all-day. Nature says that if
you do not sleep you’ll have to sleep ultimately because otherwise you’ll get
sick. But I’ll get back to this point in a while. Iqbal Hostel, where I board,
is just the right place for someone like me. People here live at night. It is
often said that the sun of Iqbal Hostel rises just as the clock strikes twelve.
Hearing the noises of people shouting, yelling; singing at the top of their
voices; songs at the loudest possible level; talking in corridors; laughing and
playing table tennis or foosball at one in the morning is not something out of
the ordinary. So I guess they suffer from the same syndrome as I do, or if they
didn’t they do now.
I am
a man of my word so I’ll get back to the point I so mercilessly left behind
previously. The demerits. If you do not sleep early at night then the most
immediate aftermath you can deduce is that you won’t be able to get up the next
morning. Considering my situation: Your alarm will yell at the top of its
digital voice at 7:15 for you to get up and get ready for breakfast, but when
you are deep in sleep then nothing from the material world can make its way to
your ears. You you’ll sleep until and unless some angel descends and bombards
at your door and calls out “8 baj gae hain ET!” You’ll sit straight up and after a
quick look at the time, run with your soap, toothbrush and paste in your hands
towards the bathroom, cursing yourself. With lightning speed you’ll get ready
and using some of Einstein’s theories you’ll reach in class at 8:15. But do not
forget that breakfast has been missed and your stomach is swearing you in an
exotic language. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get your mind to what
the instructor is saying as you had such little sleep and no food. As soon as
the class ends you’ll run towards the cafe and have breakfast and since you
have missed the meal you had already paid for, you’ll have to pay some
additional for this. Mind gets back to normal a bit and you take the remaining
classes but as you had your breakfast late you won’t be able to eat during the
lunch break and hence miss the lunch too. As the classes end you’ll go to the
cafe again to refill you empty belly that will cost you even more. When you’ll
enter your room you’ll jump on your bed and sleep tight until its dinner time. With spirits high you’ll
get up and go to the mess for dinner. With tummy filled and no trace of sleep
in your eyes you’ll get back to your room and spend another sleepless night...
A
lot of logical conclusions can be drawn from this long passage. A realistic
conclusion would be: Shut up and sleep early! An idealistic conclusion would
be: Make a proper routine and follow it. I’ll tell you my conclusion but first
read this: I have tried a lot of things to make me lose this habit. To be
honest, about two hours ago I was in my bed, eyes closed, when the idea of
writing this blog struck me. So the point is, I can’t help it. So my conclusion
is: Life is short, and this student life is even shorter. Once we step into the
practical field the burden of responsibility smacks us. This short time of
student life is the only time left for us to feel responsible just for
ourselves. Live it when you have it. Its 1:55 am and I have a class in the
morning J
0 comments:
Post a Comment