Diary of an insomniac

Diary of an insomniac

 

 

It is 1 am in the night. Most FM radio stations are off the air. My eyes are tired of reading. Watching TV is not recommended for insomnia. I am debating in my mind the options of midnight snacks. As of yet, there are no signs of sleep.

 

I open the window of my bedroom. Sea breeze floods my lungs with the salty air. I watch a long raw of ships anchored on the horizon in the moonlit white night, They are lighted like the Christmas trees. Our building is shrouded in silence that pervades the world around us after 1 a.m. A faint laughter waffles in from the railway colony across the street, a family enjoying the late-night movie perhaps.

 

I step out of my bedroom and stare silently at the turret of the St. Anne’s church in our backyard. The relentlessly punctual chime of the church wakes me up every day at 5.30 am. It’s only a few hours from now.

 

On impulse, I step out of the flat and take the elevator down. One of the two, night watchmen is unusually awake even at 2 pm. He opens the gate thinking I am going to the airport or hospital, places where people mostly go at 2 a.m. I start chatting with him about his day, his family in UP. He quickly jumps on to politics and Ayodhya Ram temple like a good UP person.

 

I take a round of building compound and watch Dhobi ghat next-door from the fence. It is already beginning to stir into life. By 4 a.m. dhobis will troop into commencing a hard day of washing clothes.

 

Back in the flat, my attempts fail to read the biography of Lord Lois Mountbatten and then Jeffery Archer’s latest.

 

By this time, it is 3 a.m. My mind is foggy and body fatigued. I know sleep will continue to elude me until I put in some effort myself. I lie down and think of my mundane day ahead that consists of such trivialities that my eyes begin to close down. 

I finally sleep.  

 

People often ask me a naïve question as to why can’t I sleep? I have become adept at not answering the question. The popular notion that I chose to disbelieve is that sustained jet leg of my international travel has robbed me of my sleep. People also attribute this to my hyper restless personality. Insomnia runs in the family too and this is a more plausible explanation.

 

I have made friends with my insomnia. But there are days when I take Zolfresh 5 mg at 10 pm and then I am dead to the world in half an hour.