A
few years ago, the call of duty made me handle the case of a white collar
criminal. What he told me during the course of the interaction was very
telling. “I have tried to sleep on the best beds of the world. You would have
not even heard that such beds do exist. But while I could get to sleep on them,
I couldn’t sleep on them.” He meant that while he could get access to those
beds, he couldn’t get access to sleep.
My
experience over the past two nights has been the same. Last night in particular. Staying in a plush hotel
in Hyderabad equipped with a softest of king-size beds to boot, I couldn’t get
any sleep. I just remembered what the man said. Sleep is not something that can
be purchased if your mind is lost in myriad thoughts and you find yourself helpless.
Close
to 650 km away, my near and dear ones were suffering, what can perhaps be called
as the worst natural calamity to hit Madras in a hundred years. That long a
time! I couldn’t contact them over phone, mail, social media – no access. With
a local Madras number, my connectivity also took a hit.
My
last conversation was:
“Has
the rain subsided?”
“No,
it hasn’t “
“Has
the water entered the house?”
“Not
yet, but it is precariously close”
“Take
care”
For
the past one day there has been no communication. No communication on a normal
day is perfectly fine, but when you are on the edge and on a prayer, it is
altogether different. Plus, with images of the floods being beamed on TV, one
does tend to get nervy...real nervy. This was how I spent the last night............
10
pm to 11 pm .........try to sleep
11
pm to 1 am ....... Tamil news channels
1
am to 2 am.......English news channels
2
am to 3 am.......Tamil news channels again
Still
no sleep.
I
thought of changing the melancholia by switching to English movie channels.
Guess what? One was showing a double bill – ‘The Perfect Storm’ and ‘Into the
Storm’. And another, well, ‘Daylight’.
Talk
about socking it in. When the Gods want to, they really do it deep, don’t they?
2 comments:
The so-called national news channels seem to have woken up too late. Most of us were oblivious to the extent of damage that the floods had caused. Only news was through social media/ whatsapp forwards. I think this is quite unfortunate that happenings away from Delhi hardly get coverage in mainstream media.
Yes, this happens. And this is not new. Moreover, these stations are primarily stationed in Delhi and Bombay and hence their priorities seem different.
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