Drowsiness

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My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

.....John Keats

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Nowadays before sleeping past midnight I swallow 9 pills:

1. Anti-depressant

2. Anti-triglycerides

3. Anti-emetic

4. Anti-allergic

5. Anti-hypertensive

6. Anti-coagulent

7. Anti-toothache

8. Vitamins

9. Minerals

Each of these pills was prescribed by some doctor or the other some time or the other during my long life. And I don't want to take chances...pension is good. So, I gulp them all at one go, wash them down first with water and then with sprite, taking care that they don't get stuck in the throat, in which case I have to add an Anti-constrictant.

Now all the seven Anti-things above cause drowsiness in some measure or the other...each helping each. So, the whole day and most of the night I feel drowsy and lie down on my cot and doze like this peaceful gent:


 

 http://www.helpfordepression.com/slideshow/drugs-and-medications/drug-side-effects-you-shouldnt-ignore

One shouldn't confuse drowsiness with dream. Dream is a state between deep sleep and wakefulness. You have no control over dreams. 

Drowsiness on the other hand is a state between sleep and dream. The Subconscious is pro-active in dream while it is passive in drowsiness. Drowsiness induced by the right dose of drugs is conducive to literary creativity unlike sleep or dream or even wakefulness. Keats composed those famous lines when he was drowsy as though he took a potshot. Coleridge is known to have composed his Kubla Khan while he was drowsy, and someone woke him up, and he lost track of the rest of the poem which stays hanging fire.

But drowsiness should be precisely the right amount. A little less will result in wakefulness and you are distracted by sights and sounds of this prosaic world...TV blaring, upstairs folks quarreling, birds shooting their throats off, distant trucks whining, neighbors busy hammer-drilling; and nothing happens. 

A little more drowsiness makes you wretched...you are neither awake nor asleep and it is damn boring for an idle chap like me. 

Sourya Ray says nobody ever dozed in my lecture classes. Sure, nobody was ever caught in this awkward position:





  http://degreesearch.org/blog/the-art-of-staying-awake-during-class/ 


But Sourya was (and is) too tall and too shy to be a front-bencher and took his seat in the back row. So, he didn't know the many devious ways of drowsing. IITians have perfected the technology of dozing with eyes open, neck erect, and a wan smile on their lips...it requires five years of incessant practice. The only time they betray themselves is when you stop talking suddenly...then their heads jerk and they take their handkerchiefs to wipe their lips thinking that they may have been oozing all along.

Girl students in the front bench occasionally yawn like this:


 


  http://sleepdisorders.dolyan.com/cpap-drowsiness-and-the-cpap-mask/ 

But that doesn't mean they are dozing. They do it to indicate to the teacher politely that enough is enough. Then I used to take the hint and sit down on my chair and ask the class to do the next step of the derivation in their note books. Then they look at each other, push their ball pens out, chew their caps, bite their lips, and look bewildered.

No offense meant...the honorable exceptions are more than the rule.

Arjun had mastered what was called:

"Sammohanasthra"

And used it against the army of Kauravas assembled in their chariots with their weapons in hand, all ready for battle during the incident when the cows of the Virat Raja were kidnapped by them. They were led by great guns like Bhishma, Drona and Kripacharya. 

As a matter of respect to them, Arjun first fired three missiles simultaneously that fell reverentially at the feet of his masters and elders, which charmed them.

And then he used his Sammohanasathra which flew in the air above the enemy battalions, and in one fell swoop all those hundreds and thousands of the warriors dozed for a while. And Arjun instructed his chela, Uttara Kumar to go forth and snatch the turbans of his sleeping enemies as a memento to his fond sister.

That was what precisely happened to me today...I was over-drugged like, and Ishani had a nice time pinching my nose and pulling my ears. 

And no great idea came up for tonight's blog...except this..


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