Life Is Like That - Mind Over Matter

That was an overnight journey and i had planned well in advance to schedule all my appointment and work through the day so that I can catch up with the sleep during the night.

The train was just packed and probably overbooked with the usual line up of passengers on the seats across the aisles sitting uncomfortably almost on each other’s lap.

There are times when you thank your stars and the lord for silliest of all reasons and one of them was just this to have been blessed with a sleeper berth.

There are times too when you pick someone amongst the scores of souls to establish vibrations which leads to conversations and the interface leaves a mark in your life. I have read it somewhere and have dismissed it like any of those other mantras on mundane matters of life.

He looked quite an extroverted person who would chance his luck at every turn of events in life and this journey without proper reservation would have been yet another of his kind. I tried for some strange reasons to size him particularly amongst the rest.

As the train moved a few fellows moved out of the train too and even then there were quite a few of them perched diagonally opposite. I decided to ignore their ordeal for the next half-hour for I knew that they would be waiting for the final verdict from the tt before they resign to their fate for the rest of the journey.

I spread the sheet across the berth and decided to catch up with some reading to distract myself from the fellow passenger’s discomfort.

Well reading before retiring for the day has in it some opium that puts you to sleep faster and secretly I was waiting to be transformed into that state for I was too tired of the day’s routine and had to also refresh for the day next.

I would have just settled to the reading position that this guy tapped me gently on my back and requested if he could be accommodated to share the berth with me. He suggested that we could sleep with the head on the opposite sides! And was looking at me quite expectantly that somehow I will agree to his idea.

I was too tired and was just not in a mood to compromise, accommodate and adjust. More than that, i was a bit taken aback with his boldness to make such a strange suggestion. I raised my head half way from my berth and said "sorry man, I am too tired and would not like to be disturbed in my sleep with each of us falling and rolling over the other.

He turned back to his seat showing me signs of ‘no problems’ and flopped awkwardly between the other two passengers on both sides.

The novel almost did the trick, but then only for a few hours. I was up and awake suddenly to the deadness of the night save the snores here and there and of course the beat of the train as it crossed each part of the track at good speed.

I saw this guy sleeping in a sitting position blissfully oblivious of the discomfort that he would have in that position.

As of me, the next few hours and in the process the whole night i somehow could not manage to catch up with the sleep and even the opium of the novel proved ineffective.

I tossed around left and right and tried all poses known to me to summon the sleep but to no avail. It went on this way much to my irritation all through the night and till it was almost the dawn of the next day.

Frustrated I decided to give up and sat up. One look at him and I could not help relenting and the deeper I dealt with, it helped me to open my eyes of understanding (notwithstanding that my eyes were burning with tiredness).

I had a sleeper but here I could not manage to sleep most of the night, while he had to sit through and yet is having a sound sleep.

Well, as if to have heard me thinking loud he opened his eyes and in a jiffy sat upright.

He looked so fresh as the morning dew and ready to take the world on;
While I felt dull at dawn feeling sleepy with those tired yarns

I realized, a berth hardly mattered for a sound sleep; it’s, all in the mind,
To command the body to sleep; sitting or sleeping pose? Never mind.

So what if you have the means to secure those comforts and leisure
It hardly matters when you cannot the experience the pleasure.

Here I paid a price (small though) only to spend a sleepless night
And he got the prized sleep all through the night!

Well my berth and the sleepless night are the burden of the song
That’s going to travel along as lessons learnt for a time long

I wished him ‘good morning ‘and
He as politely as before enquired ‘hope you had a good sleep"

That was an arrow of an understatement
That said it without saying so, all that it meant.

‘contone-ment ‘the tt called out. He stood up and bid me good bye turning back
‘condone’ment ‘I pleaded with him through my eye contact even as I signed back.

Life is like that; you like it or not
With lessons that come by most unsought