Sleep Until You Go To Bed..!!

1.55pm, at my place.

I woke up to a brassy thud of my main door one week day. I strained my eye-balls to the corners of the eye to catch the clock but in vain. If you din’t know- laziness finds its nest in me ; I’m lazy in everything except in ‘being lazy’. So the question in hand was- how would I check the time, without actually doing as strenious a thing as lifting-my-head-and-rotating-it-towards-the-clock?

I set out with my analysis-

2 thuds per-day – both by Dad – morning or lunch time? – not morning, I couldn’t smell a Body Spray – so- lunch time – 1.30 to 2 – Dad’s office is 5 mins away - The time is 1.55 pm. I’ve slept for 14 hours – record-breaking stuff. Wow..!!

My phone vibrated like a ghost from under the pillow. – “Hello!” I sounded alert.

“Dude, me Roshan. Where are you?” You Idiot

“I’m in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) preparing the software part of our project work.”

“That’s great. I’m in NIIT - ‘Networking’ class.” Bullshit

“That’s great!”

“I’ll meet you in an hour in IISc.” Get lost

“Nope. I’ll meet you in NIIT in an hour.” I announced putting my vocal chords into unnecessary strain.

“Nope. Let the place be Barista.” He finalised.

As I put down the phone, I raised my left hand to fetch the TV remote. Rambo on Star Movies. Lovely! With my slothful right hand I fetched the cold-coffee which I suppose would have been Hot-coffee when it was kept there. When people ask me questions like- “ Don’t you exercise? How bad?” and stare at me disgustingly, I have a few ready-made words- “ I meditate for 14 hours followed by some finger exercises ( with my TV remote), then my arms ( by moving it to and fro, in and out of my mouth), my neck ( which shuffles repetitively between the TV screen and the coffee mug) and finally my legs ( basically by stretching them).”

Anyway, as the movie was interrupted with commercials of a tooth-paste-with-salt thing, I decided to head to the bathroom in search of my tooth brush.



1.55pm, at Roshan’s place.

“Bah bah black sheep, hav………..” he sang, abrupty paused and sprung out of bed like a clown. He threw a glance at the clock and yawned. “I’ve slept for 16 hours straight. Wow!” he told himself and continued- “ my dream… oh.. my dream… “ he tried to recollect. After 120 seconds, his bulb glowed as he could picture his abruptly ended dream- 3 ghosts with invisible bottoms surrounded him, manufacturing scary faces at him. Just then a saint entered from nowhere ( like Rajnikanth) chanting- “Omm Sai Baba …. Omm Sai Baba..” He rested his arms over Roshan’s shoulder and adviced- “ My boy, chant a bhajan to praise Baba and he will take care of the ghosts.” Wasting no time, Roshan began- “ Ba-Ba Black sheep…..” and that’s when he woke up.

Anyway, he came back to the real world and retrieved a cup of tea which was placed on his book/tea-stand. He found his phone and dialled-

“Hello?”

“Dude, me Roshan. Where are you?” he enquired.

“I’m in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) preparing the software part of our project work.” Bullshit

“That’s great. I’m in NIIT - ‘Networking’ class.”

“That’s great!” You dumb-head

“I’ll meet you in an hour in IISc.”

“Nope. I’ll meet you in NIIT in an hour.” Get lost


“Nope. Let the place be Barista.”




1 Hour Later

Barista was empty enough at 3 in the afternoon. A few tables were occupied though, with couples trialing each other’s faces. I found a seat, ordered some weird-named coffee and stared at good looking faces indiscriminately. Meanwhile Roshan rushed in hurriedly and sat facing me. He hooked his eye-brow and asked- “ IISc?”
I nodded and copied his hooking-the-eye-brow-thing and shot back- “NIIT?”
He nodded and looked away. Letting a few minutes of silence go by, I looked at him, bounced my eye-brows as if to ask him- “What?” for which he returned a half-closed eye. With all this non-sense, a third eye could easily mistake us for two dons finalising a murder or something. Anyway, another minute of silence passed and I cleared my throat and asked- “ How long?”

“What ‘how long’?”

“Ok. Me 14 hours.” I winked.

“Yup. Me 16 hours.”

“damn…” we lifted our mugs.

“Sometimes we stay up so late that we have our morning coffee just before we go to bed.”