Now it doesn’t seem to be hyperbole any more. All of my friends, and of course I myself, seem to have metamorphosed into Barry’s son. You just have to be online at any point in the night, and you’ll find that your messenger is crammed with young bloods that never seem to sleep. If a text is sent at one a.m., you’ll get an immediate reply. If you even call someone at two a.m., she’ll be sounding as chirpy and wide awake as anything. Nobody wonders anymore why people, particularly youngsters, don’t sleep at night. The world is turning into a huge insomniac club.
Our parents don’t like this. They ask, what is it that we can’t do by day? Why must we ruin our health? They point at the raccoon-like under-eye circles, our inability to wake up in the morning, pimples sprouting indiscriminately all over, the general haziness and dazedness that seems to surround us all day. Sometimes, we promise ourselves, after a particularly dull day, that we’ll not let our bedtimes cross ten or some such reasonable hour. Yet, as night descends, we’re at our perky best, too animated even to recall our resolution.
While our parents disapprove, our grandparents abhor this trend of sleepless nights. I remember how, when we were little and there was yet no electricity, we would have dinner hurriedly, before there was a need to light the candles that inevitably attracted the troublesome moths. Then, of course, we were bundled off to sleep as soon as the sun set, so that we woke up fresh, singing along with the holy chants blaring out of Radio Nepal at dawn. The maxim – early to bed and early to rise makes everyone happy and wise – was followed with a charming honesty.
No wonder then that there’s such resistance against the notion of late sleepers, and thus late risers. Of course, these days everyone is compelled to set their sleep routines by the electricity schedules, and not their body clock, so the erratic sleep patterns are of no surprise. But even at other times, when there’s no reasonable excuse to stay up so late – reruns of mushy soaps and rereading a paperback don’t exactly count as reasonable – everybody seems to stay awake the whole night, or at least sleep in bits and pieces or half-hour schedules.
Many times I wonder why it is so. Is it because this is the only time truly yours, away from studies and work and daily routines? Is it the moment to unwind and relax? Everything seems so much better at night – there’s a calmness and serenity and even better net surfing rates and phone tariff. The weather, which seemed apathetic earlier, gets romantic and cozy as the night wears on. There’s no hurry or rush for a thousand things to be done. Even the FM stations play such soulful music that you could stay awake just listening to them. Things are sharper, clearer, more dramatic and touching than at any other time.
And after all this leisure, anyone can imagine what an absolute pain it is to get up the next morning. That is, people who actually are up and about at an unearthly hour – and for us insomniacs, it’s anytime before eight a.m. – are among my list of the most courageous people on earth. Otherwise, everyone I meet seems to have the same refrain: “I can stay up all night but I just can’t get up in the mornings!”
There was also a query in an Agony Aunt column that said, “I feel guilty because I can’t get up in the mornings, however hard I try. The burden of preparing lunch goes to my elderly parents. What should I do?”
The wise columnist tactfully suggested that perhaps his parents didn’t mind if he shared the evening chores, and there was a wry suggestion, “Perhaps you could just sleep earlier.”
Now, that’s a fitting reply to the insomniac club.
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