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A sleepless night


   Go to sleep, you tell yourself for the umpteenth time. You have a test tomorrow.

   Worried about the prospect of the next morning, you take a detour from your usual routine and go to bed early. And early for you means 2:00 AM. You lie on your bed and let out a breath of sigh. Then you close your eyes and urge yourself to sleep. Your brain, however, has something entirely different planned for you.

   Why are there more than one movie based on Steve Jobs’ life. He died of Cancer, so sad. The world lost a gem. What would he have felt while dying? Where would he be, now: some heavenly place or is he just…… absent?

   When will George RR Martin release the next book? So much time has passed. He has grown old. Please don’t die before completing the series. That’s so selfish! But, whatever!

   Then someday J K Rowling……OMG! No, not her. But death is a certainty which none can escape. Still, the realization that she will be gone one day never occurred before. What a sorry day that would be! Stop, man! What are you thinking? Stop! Go to sleep, man. You have a test tomorrow. Just sleep!

   The voices in your head disappear as you focus on trying to sleep. It stays that way while you stare into nothingness. Then…

   Mr. Abdul Kalam died in his 80’s. Most people die in their 80’s. And you don’t even exercise nor do yoga regularly. That leaves you with what, around 60 years more to live. Will it be enough? Or will it be too much to endure watching people who you once knew and loved starting to disappear in due course of time? And really, what is the purpose of your life. No, you don’t know, now. Will you know, then, in the final moments of your life? Would you then be aware of that purpose let alone succeed in achieving it.

   From one random thing to another, your brain rambles on. An hour into your closed-eye-awakedness, you are planning a surprise birthday party for your sister which is months away. Next, your brain brings out a list of things that you should or shouldn’t have done in your life. And God knows that list is too long. It would take the entire night and still have plenty of things left out.

   The internal monologue of your brain continues and you find yourself going with the flow, without realising it. Suddenly, you become conscious of what’s happening, so you jump in to interrupt. The monologue pauses but resumes a short while after. This happens time and again. It’s like, the harder you try to sleep, the harder your brain fights back. Normally, it wouldn’t be of much consequence but you got a test tomorrow. Helplessly, you twist and turn in your bed; every posture becomes uncomfortable after some time. You fluff your pillow, turn it over and around, and then out of frustration, you throw it away. You think it’s the fluids, so you journey to the toilet; still, no use. You take a tour of the balcony hoping the cool wind to make you drowsy. It worked. But the moment you lie in your bed, you are fresh and alert as ever. You go back to twisting and turning around in bed.

   A faint ray of dawn peeks through the window. You check your mobile; Whoa! it's 5:30 AM; only three hours of sleep left.

   That must have been the cue for your brain to shut up ‘coz checking your mobile is the last thing you remember when the alarm wakes you up two hours later. You’re glad that you would not end up sleeping throughout the test time.

   You dash for the errand at hand. In all this rush, the dread for J K Rowling’s life goes back to languishing in some unknown part of your brain, to perhaps grip you some other day.


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