I have never been a morning person. Neither are my two
sisters morning persons. My daughter shuts the curtains shut so that she can
stop the sun from rising too early. My nieces – let’s not even go there!
In a nutshell, we are all night owls. Even as a child, all
my most productive schoolwork was done after dinner, when my lovely Parvathy
Amma, the one who used to run our kitchen, and much of our lives, would feed us
all to the gills. Those were the days when the fads of intermittent fasting and
eating before the sun went down had not yet been invented.
Once dinner was over, Parvathy Amma would walk in with a
steaming cup of strong coffee with which I could burn the midnight oil. Even
today, when I drink coffee in school, my teachers shudder at its colour.
Strong, sweet and tolerably hot – that is what I need, especially on a day
filled with visitors, meetings and brainstorming.
Going back to my childhood, all three of us, my sisters
and I would keep awake and study, and end up chatting till the wee hours, till
my mother would lurch in with sleep-clouded eyes and say sternly, “Go to sleep
immediately!” Guiltily, we would hide the by now empty chocolate wrappers, and try
to sleep. Again, those were the days when we had no idea that the phrase ‘chocolate
high’ existed.
Thus, early mornings were torture. We would totter out of bed, bleary-eyed, and follow a mechanical routine of brushing, bathing, dressing and eating, one after the other till (in the case of my little sisters), the horn of the school bus would be heard. Anyone sitting in the drawing room would witness two streaks of lightning whizzing by, a comb in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other.
Since I was in college, I had a bit more time to myself
in the morning. On my eighteenth birthday, our mother had bought me a moped
which I used to ride to college. The college I studied in was an interesting institution,
and I happened to be the first girl in recent history who was driving a moped.
I have heard of another lady, in the hoary past, who used to ride a
two-wheeler, but well, that was in the hoary past.
Like I said, college was interesting with a history of
political violence and a colourful past. On a different note, I had seen boys studiously
bending over to remove the air from the tires of a professor’s scooter. Hence,
I would park my moped in a young friend’s house and walk it to college. Better
safe than sorry, as they put it!
When I got married to a dashing young Army officer, I was doing my post-graduation and burning the midnight oil. My sisters were
still streaks of lightning whizzing by. On occasions, their brand-new brother-in-law
(love) would drive them to school, where they would show him off to their
friends.
As luck would have it, when I turned into an Army wife, I
realised that the only profession I could take up was teaching, and luckily, I
took to it like a duck takes to water. The only problem was that my early
morning blues continued. My better half, on the other hand, is the earliest bird
that catches every worm. He would be at his chirpiest best in the mornings,
while I would look at him bleary-eyed, marvelling at how he managed it.
Forty years later, he still wakes up at the crack of dawn (a phrase that I have never fathomed even now) and goes for a walk religiously (pun intended!) He crosses all the main temples, and mind you, we live in a temple town. By the time he gets back, it is time for me to start my morning, and I work like clockwork till I get to school, where I am now the Executive Director where the clock continues to click.
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Fate has a way of making you recall the past… all those the
late nights and the painful early mornings! The wonderful feeling when you peer
at the clock and realise that you have another hour of sleep before you push
the covers away! The tiny chill that meanders in, making you twist yourself
into a tiny arc! That heady thrill of knowing that it is a Sunday and that you
can sleep in!
Then it begins – that tiny bark that gets compounded into
a series of shrill barks as two canines next door compete to get shriller and
shriller, almost like a medley. The reason could be just anything – a footstep
that disturbs them, the rustle of an insect, the sight of other stray dogs
walking in perfect freedom while these two are stuck in a tiny balcony. That
can really ruffle their feelings, you know.
Kerala has this uncanny habit. People get dogs to soothe
their nerves and keep thieves away. Then they promptly shut them away in
kennels or on balconies. I remember reading a book called ‘Flowers in the Attic’
when I was younger where four children were locked away in an attic by their
parents and not allowed to see the world. I dub these two canines as flowers in
the attic as well. Their barking starts with little yips and along with their
excitement, turns into a cacophony of incessant noise. Unfortunately, they are
most active early in the morning. I assume they sleep through the rest of the
day and night just so that they can be at their noisiest best at dawn.
So there you have it – I am not a morning person, and the
world still conspires to rob me of those precious hours that I cherish. Luckily,
they do say that with age, people can do with fewer hours of sleep. Maybe I
will get there one day! Till then, I say,
“Dear sleep, I’m sorry we broke up this morning. I want
you back.”
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1006 words
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