BREAKING DAWN....

Dehradun
the routine day, 1995
8:00 pm

Stuffing the math home assignment into my schoolbag, I expectantly waited for dinner to be served while the newsreader on Doordarshan rattled on about the day's newsmakers, entertainers and illusive government propaganda directed towards political gain of the ruling party, especially considering the upcoming general elections (Of course nothing made sense to a standard 2 boy, solely interested in the 'Dekh Bhai Dekh' series that followed the 8'o clock news).
The day had been fun. Chasing dragonflies, playing football, discovering dominions hitherto unknown wandering through the vast 'greenlands' of SJA, and other arbit jackassery more than made up for the meagre study and scanty reading hours. A new day would commence next morning, starting 6 am - the matador would be honking at my door, waiting to ferry me through the biting cold to 5 kms away - and so after enjoying Shekhar Suman's lucid performance thoroughly with peals of genuine laughter, I retired to bed, ignorant and unconcerned of the tomorrow that was to come.


Vadodara
March 2007
9:30 pm

"Take it easy beta ! You have plenty of time left." - was mom's reaction to the way I was gorging up huge quantities of food, a spoon in one hand and my chemistry textbook in the other. Boards were knocking at my door, banging harder and harder as the time elapsed, raising dread and despair in the deepest confinements of my heart. After hours of serious pondering, I still hadn't been able to figure out the dynamics of rotation, which was resulting in a rather irritable disposition. It took a great deal of persuation by my parents to put me to sleep by midnight, assuring me I had done well enough to fetch me a 99 percentile (and weren't they right !). Horrendous dreams haunted me through the night, repercussions of having spent more time prognosticating the result of the Indo-Pak cricket series giving me the heebie-jeebies. After all, it was going to be my first step towards an ambitious career.


Roorkee
18th Feb. 2010
00:00 hours

The day has just begun. Every ray of light originating within the cosmos has vanished into thin air. Two years ago, at this time I would have been sound asleep. Today, life has assumed a nocturnal demeanour. The ecstasy of unperturbed slumber has long been forgone.
The midsems begin 10 hours from now, but I haven't commenced preparations, yet I couldn't worry less. I have the whole night to myself, time long enough to make amends. Staring blankly into the pages of a book that had until this time been lying in a corner, carefully preserved under a film of dust, I embark upon a voyage through the ocean of discreet 'fundas' and temporal laws without further ado. I might not be able to complete my journey, but the tools of conjecture and expression would come in handy to serve my purpose of making it through the stipulated 1 hour trial of mental ability, reasoning and mugging.

Even though I have already wasted much time writing this post, I gain inspiration from Robert Frost's beautiful lines of poetry:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And Miles to go before I sleep
And Miles to go before I sleep....."