One hour of sleep

On 13^th, September 2005 (Tuesday) I was awake all night for some non important business and next day I slept at 7pm. On 14^th September, 2005 (Wednesday) I was a year older than the sophomores at IIT. I was in C-103, RK Hall. I woke up after my hour long nap at 8 pm. I remember I was too hungry and so tried to call my wingies to have dinner. But none of them were in the wing. It was a Specials Day in mess. So I went alone to mess. At 8pm during specials day generally the mess remains crowded. But there was just a hint of some peoples there and I couldn’t find my wingies there. Anyways after a minute I found that regular old wordless food was being served. I was too hungry and so I ate. I remembered that I had to submit some assignments the next day and so technically was worried for a while to search for the source. Then I found something unusual. When I was returning from the mess I found that many peoples have deliberately changed there clothes, that is, they aren’t wearing what they had wore an hour ago. There wasn’t much to question or answer and so I went back to my room. Then I moved the mouse to bring back the monitor to normal from power-saving mode. There were some 10-15 message windows. Most of them were forwarded messages and some of the most irritating ones asking to forward them for good luck. The same song “Lucy in the sky” was being played on winamp in repeat mode. I closed every application and started orkuting. I had got 5-7 new scraps. For your information, I wasn’t (and am not) popular in orkut that I would get so many scraps in a single hour. Anyways, there wasn’t much to question there too. I saw my mobile and there were around 30 missed calls including 4-5 from home. 30 missed calls and 7-8 people to handle there. Then I got the feeling that something had happened in that one hour. I called home. My sister said that all of them at home had been trying my number since that morning but I am not picking up the cell phone. I tried to remember but couldn’t find any answer so as why I didn’t pick up the phone. My cell phone must have been in silent mode – I thought and replied. I called everyone who had missed call me and said that I was asleep. Some of the calls were info. based and rest were for formal bhatting. All of those who bhatted with me that day said the same thing to me – how much sleep do you need? and I answered them all “as much as possible”. Then I connected DC++ and downloaded some videos or songs or both – I don’t remember and watched for sometime. I thought of my assignment and tried to contact some peoples in yahoo messenger. I was glad to know that the teacher had said to submit that in a week. After that I relaxed but something was seriously wrong. I was feeling roomsick or better was feeling sick of room. I wanted some fresh air and so went to chhedis for a couple of smokes. Met some people here and there talked and roamed for sometime. There was a lot of works to do but as usual until the deadline I had to relax. The time was then around 11 pm and I went back to my room. Before that my wingies confronted me and scolded me for being a lazy ass and said that there was a treat that day and I didn’t wake up however bad they knocked/kicked the door and called my name. I said that I had maroed a 36hr straight night out and so had slept a little. Anyways we got entangled in other stuffs and again the bhaat session persisted. All the topics we talked about was what usually we bhatted. But something was wrong. I was felt like having a dream. I felt like being in another dimension. At around 12am I left to my room and a strange feeling came to me. Those who can’t control themselves rely on their cell phone. I dialed a number and talked about my awkward sensations and heard about Bhagwat Gita. After the confabulation I felt a little relaxed. But still something was wrong. Then I marked something which I should have marked in the beginning. The newspaper was squeezed between the opened door and the wall. It looked like as if I hadn’t read it. Those days the first thing I used to do every morning was to read the head lines of TOI, the cartoon section and BOL-TARA-BOL for astrology. Anyways, I started to read the new news and headlines and simultaneously wondering how could I miss reading newspaper that day. Then I remembered that I had read Wednesday’s news.

I took a long deep breath went to the front page of the news paper and saw the date. 15^th September, 2005 – Thursday.