Can’t go to sleep? Go somewhere else!

I didn't shut up. I was asleep. To be honest, I wasn’t as I’m too sad to be happy to be asleep. But I couldn’t come up with a better excuse for the delay in scrawling a thing or two for my Space.

Besides, I don't remember the last time sleep walked up to me. It was always me who shamelessly chased her. Yup. That’s how it is. Leading a nocturnal life for the past four years has taken a heavy toll on my eyes and the areas surrounding them, including brain. I’d love to be Rip van Winkle for a day and stay asleep for the next 20 years. Or if possible, at least 40. After all, falling asleep is not as risky as falling in love. The process begins with you and ends with you, no strings attached.

Going forward, sleep will be one of those tricks only babies can perform. For insomniacs like me, expressions like "sleeping like a baby" is such a cruel joke. However, I try to find some solace in the fact that sleeping like a log *sounds* a lot better than sleeping like a baby. Ask any newly-parented parent.

Speaking of parents, I love my family but I love them even more while they are asleep and almost non-existent. On a bad day, you can't tolerate them breathing around you and then they go to sleep. And snore. Similarly, my ma, like all other mothers, is beautiful; especially when she's asleep and not nagging me to shut down the PC. You know, you're supposed to close your eyes and pray when your ears starts whispering something and the quickest way left to overcome a night is by going to bed. Embarrassing as it is, when I’m asleep, my boner points to God. On waking up, it points to Devil. Life!

"I feel numb on waking up from sleep." "Try to wake up from something else." “o_O”

If you wake up to go to work and sleep to wake up to go to work, there is not much in your existence to live. On top of that, if you are not able to cover your forty winks adequately, life’s worse. At work, you may be just a blink away from falling flat on your nose. But before you know it, your job teaches you how to doze off with your eyes open. Sometimes yawning is the only thing that keeps you from typing with your nose. While going through such ordeals, all you desire is the floor you’re standing on, nothing else. To make matters pitiful, sleeping on the job cannot be as bad as waking up and finding yourself in office. And you just want to go home to watch a movie and drift off to sleep with headphones on, providing background music to your vacant dreams.

On weekends, being asleep is like a routine before Monday blues take over the scene. Waise, due to irregular sleep patterns, Monday doesn't wake up before we do like it once used to. Thanks to sleeplessness, we don't wake up scared in the middle of the night anymore, either. So in a way, there's plus points too.

There are two kinds of people in this world - those who try to sleep and those who try to live their dreams. The ones with sleeping disorder don’t fit in. They are the eternal misfits tortured by a f-ed up biological clock. For them, insomnia is rest for the soul. Moreover, by any logic, a deaf man sleeps soundest. Come to think of it, disability is an advantage in this case. When you have a sleepy face, no one frankly bothers whether you are paying attention to what they're saying or not.

I don't have a dream left/ Just a volatile wish/ A night to sleep my life off/ Or live my death in peace!

Sometimes all you need to do to make the world a better place is sleep. After all, you don't sleep. You just successfully pretend to dream. And at the end of the day, you go back to sleep with yourself. Happy are those who are asleep when they wish to be asleep and richest are the ones who sleep sound at night. Bleh. Sooner or later, everyone falls asleep. Despite massive advances in science, we neither know where sleep comes from nor where it goes back to.

May you sleep so deep that you forget your old self and wake up as the person you always wanted to be.

Enough of sleepy jabber. I should be asleep now but I am not. I shouldn't be napping in office later but I will be. Anyway I hereby exercise my right to be asleep again.

The monk who never sold his old bike

Einstein and I share a liking for bicycle, violin and sailing. Okay. I haven't touched a violin nor sailed yet but I’ve got to start somewhere, right? You see, I like to think of myself as a very simple guy. Not because I am one but because I like to believe I am. Even my bicycle agrees with me. After all, we are friends. What are friends for other than pretending to think alike? As for the simple-guy-fantasy, someday I may not show up coz I'd be in Himalayas to fulfill my pursuit of becoming the monk who sold his bicycle. Yeah, something of that sort!

I’ve got to admit I love my bicycle dearly. But thanks to the kind of road we Indians are blessed with, it’s a tumultuous affair. In a more philosophical words, every once in a while we end up loving those who keep disappointing us. That's precisely the kind of relationship I share with my ‘cycle. He doesn’t appreciate my choice of riding under heavy rainfall with my windcheaters on. Maybe he gets cold. Whatever. Bicycles aren't supposed to be emotional. And it’s not his fault but he’s getting old like me and showing signs of infirmity.

It’s all right as long as the wheels are spinning.

Lately, while riding home, my bicycle turns nostalgic reminiscing the good ole days when there used to be a decent road instead of ruthless potholes. Anyway, I try to keep him well-groomed and oiled. Getting killed because of faulty brakes may sound heroic in Tour de France, not here. Moreover, no matter what, I often end up with a flat tyre. If you are a cycle-rider too, you must have noticed by now that a flat tyre is bicycle's way of demonstrating who is faster amongst you two. If you are not, think about it. I know this all thanks to the quality time I share with my bicycle. In fact, many a times, talking to my punctured bicycle while walking it home turns out to be the highlight of the day.

Me: “How far out can you take me from this society?”

Bicycle: “I know you're a teetotaler so stop talking like a boozer!”

By the way, do you remember the childhood thrill of riding a bicycle for the very first time on your own? You do? Well, that experience won't repeat itself again. Ever. This may sound cornier than I intend it to be but trust me when I say this – those moments may get lost in the labyrinth of our memory but nothing can possibly beat it. Deal with it.

Besides, bicycle is THE vehicle of the future. That’s a given. When this planet will be out of oil and all the misdeeds associated with its procurement, all of us will be going Dutch. And by Dutch, I don’t mean splitting the cost equally or something. I’m referring to the Netherlands’ love for cycling. Even today on a busy highway, the one riding a ‘cycle is the odd man (sneaking) out of the maddening rush.

Since I started with a narcissistic paragraph, let me end with one. I want everyone to know that I'm the only guy in my office that commutes by bicycle. Ergo, I'm saving the environment for your kids. In legal terms, each one of you owes me big time! Also, I’m the only known superhero who prefers to be a messiah who can’t walk on water but can balance himself on two wheels!!