Unwinding the...

At times, surprise comes calling without an announcement. I know you are ready to throw the semantics at me. But be patient and let this be explained. The surprise is a friend from childhood and who till now remained incognito. Rest assured, I mean to definitely ask him, "What he had been up to all these years? The usual catching up with bygone years, and discussing past and current happenings in our families, went on and on for some time. Hunger and thirst took the backseat to give us the space and time to chat. 

When the shadows started their journey toward the east, we realised ,that we no longer had control over the hunger pangs. At this point, my friend turned around and asked, " where are the family members?" and said with a little embarrassment, "I feel bad in not noticing their absence, as soon as I entered the house". He was relieved to know that all are attending a function in the city and will be back only by nightfall.

We sat down for the prepared lunch, taking care to eat as little as possible, so that the other person will have his fill. In this process both of us went partially hungry. A small inconvenience, we willingly put up with for the joy of being together.

Then we did a tour of the house, taking longer than necessary, though it was of medium size. Finally, we ended up in my study room. Bookcase arranged with tomes, on diverse subjects, greeted the friend. He would have been surprised if a bookworm like me had not stocked enough reading material. Always he had this grouse - "You have stored more words in your mind, than what you could possibly use in your lifetime". His interest perked up considerably, when he noticed the these out of place objects, neatly arranged! Short pieces of wood, of irregular shape, and resting on a stack of sand emery papers. A collection of hacksaw blades, knives and a broken grinding wheel, and a mini translucent bottle-sprayer. An iron box in the company of overflowing laundry bag completed the odd collection in the study room.

Following his line of sight, I explained about them as tools of my trade. The friend was taken aback, as he had been under the impression, that I had long since retired, and wondered what could be the "trade" that I have been practicing!

He asked, " Friend, tell me how these tools help?" It took me sometime, to formulate a reply and it ran like this: Family members do not conform to fixed parameters, on account of extraneous factors on any given day, though they might be making conscious efforts, to smoothen frayed nerves. When elders, youngsters and children live under one roof, then you have the perfect recipe for constant breakdown of harmony. In such a situation, a retired person becomes an easy target - for odd jobs, for blames, for frolic & fun, for the weather and what not?

For a few minutes, the guest remained silent, thinking about how to go about my predilection. He knew of me as a person of high sensitivity. He might be doubting, with concern, whether I have   become paranoid too? A very delicate matter indeed for him to casually deal with. I keenly watched his discomfort, with mild curiosity. It was far from my mind, to make him to suffer with anxious concern. Memories, from the past, surging back in my mind - recollected the times when he had exhibited this very same trait! 

A brief smile appeared on my face. A caring friend! I decided to lift the veil of suspense, regarding the tools of trade. My friend, if you are wondering, without expressing it verbally - have I gone off my moorings, the answer is a negative. Then "why" is the question that remains to be answered and you will get it sooner than later.

You will be shocked or surprised or perplexed because the reason is a secret but for you, I will reveal it - I learned a technique during my professional life, working in a high-stress environment. This practical technique was developed by like-minded colleagues. We called our technique "Unwinding" and the protocol is to choose a way, to work away the accumulating anger, at the end of the day, each day. After a few weeks of trial, we got the hang of working with this technique and became a bunch of clowns - laughing at anything that triggered anger. 

I explained while working away the bottled irritation or anger, there is a silent method or a sound method. No doubt my friend became confused once again. He was relieved when I told him that ironing is the silent method, useful when all are present in the house.  Working with wood is the sound method, which I use when alone in the house. Some days it is wood-work and on some other occasions, I run the in-house laundromat. Doing carpentry, I release my anger.

During washing and ironing, I silently convey to the family members that their outbursts are not taken to my heart. It is me who has allowed them to vent out their frustration. In turn, by following this protocol, I act as the sink to disperse the deposited anger. 

Standing near an open cupboard, I signaled my friend to come over. The hand-crafted wood works stood in display, as mute witnesses to the amount of frustration I have helped to disperse. By now, he must have understood why I keep these tools and finished objects in my study. Still, I asked him, "Now, do you believe in my trade - Unwinding?"

He was about to ask, but before words could come out, I explained - how it benefits me. I simply carry on with my hobby, without any hassle! At the same time, I could help us all to maintain a peaceful atmosphere in the house.

Amazed, my friend cast his eyes in admiration all over the study room, including me in its sweep. At the end of the day, my friend took leave, probably wondering how it is possible for me, to be consistently different, to this day! May be, he relied upon his old memories to silently make this observation.     

Antenna

 All my discomforts started sometime back, and my difficulty in falling sound asleep might have triggered it.  As a sleeping aid, counting sheep or reading-till-falling asleep did not help. Searching for an alternate solution, I started to stare at the roof and the ceiling fan.  This failed to help, other than inducing eye strain. I ended up getting a pair of prescription glasses. Your wonder is the same as mine - whether I will wear it to bed!

When all these attempts were being made, new entrants came into my night life, uninvited or may have been invited by none other than my intermittent insomnia. I am a poor host, and this didn't make the guests feel out of place. Now, it is your turn to meet with them and it will be my pleasure to do the introductions.

Initially, it was my neighbours who came in and discussed about various issues in their life, with me. Some of them even brought agenda points for discussion. The audio arrangement was of a good quality, but they forgot to give the video feed. At the end of the audio session, they left quietly gifting me a headache. Since my ordeal has not made its way into the public domain, mercifully the hordes of well-wishers have not yet joined this nighttime charade. I could not shake the feeling that I could have been sleepily awake! Seizing this opportunity, a vague remembrance that the process of sleeping is governed by certain cycles, started doing the rounds in my mind, without offering any practical help to me. Where was I, in the sleep cycle, in or out of it? My bone-tired mind failed to store this important information. To me it seemed like the weatherman's stock-prediction about rain; "isolated light, moderate, heavy to very heavy" fall is likely to occur. I suffered the same uncertainty.

 Next, the celluloid (or is it now digital?) world took a fancy to do its bit. Yester years' stars came to the show with stale tidbits to share. All the thespians took pains to differentiate their real life from reel lives. On this occasion, the cinematic presentation stole the show, though lacked direction and punch.

No matter what, the next sleepless night brought a different type of luminaries and topic. Though I have armchair interest in sports - too lazy to shake muscles, the expert opinions on why the cream of talented players fade like sour milk and answering their own question by squarely blaming the greed of governing bodies and players in equal measure. This technical on-screen dissection at least put out quality sound bytes and matched stream of photons. 

My feeble attempts to fall asleep, latest by the early morning hours went for a toss. My fatigued brain wondered, "What's going on?"

My internal reaction wheel, searching for equilibrium, went on an overdrive. Becoming tired, it even started to wobble like a spinning top losing momentum. No luck -the beauty sleep still eluded me. Even before the sleeplessness could establish its dominance over my nocturnal slumber, I had stopped being a spectator to TV panel discussions. It is such a programme, that any viewer can attribute any reason for staying away from them. I did it for keeping my inner peace.

Yet, political analysts somehow sneaked through my self-erected barrier. Thoughts for digestion ranged from "this party treats victory as a popular swing and goes into hibernation till next election", "why this daydreaming party, playing hide and seek in my hibernation and amnesia, should not be disbanded?"

"Another party takes wins and losses for scrutiny and correction"; "regional outfits aspire to come into national reckoning"; “that third political outfit thinks it could always be the cabinet maker and happy to win a handful of seats", and so on. In frustration, I bid goodbye to the cabinet makers urging them to try and venture into furniture market, in between the elections.

With all these noise makers going full throat at me and at other analysts, my hope of having a peaceful sleep takes a foreign trip, the least I could do in my desperation. I must, now, hasten to book the flight before individual politicians decide to linger and disturb my sleep, with one-to-one discussion.

I came to my wits' end when the greats from the last century started lecturing me on Relativity, Wormholes, Quantum entanglements and other heavy subjects, along with blackboards full of mathematical derivations. They did not realise that - (1) Science was far from my sleep deprived mind (2) During college days, it had happily half-slept through lectures on any subject, without prejudice and now (3) These uninvited lectures are non-starters, the need of the hour being for an expert who could usher in sleep. Even though highly frustrated, I could still admire them. True to their calling, they had patiently waited in queue to have a go at me!

Waiting for a chance, my family members decided to take part (or to take me apart) in the show. Who in their right mind would like to miss this golden opportunity? But they were very considerate - took turns and came after me, to suggest that a visit to the doctor is imperative. Thanking silently that my family members did not invite a panel of medical experts to hold an all-night consulting session, whether I was willing or not.

As the last option, during the daytime, I started collecting contact phone numbers of leading medical practitioners. It will be redundant to point out, that I was so confused, as to which specialist doctor has to be consulted. The exhaustive list scared the day lights out of my mind – cure worse than disease?

I didn't anticipate the negative fallout- out of the prepared list. In the next few nights, doctors from diverse medical specialties deliberated the possible syndromes that could cover my malady. In simple terms, it was nightmares in medical jargon. They could not come to a firm conclusion, and I didn't get the needed relief. At this point, the fear of four longs confronted me. Long wait in the clinic, long list of clinical tests, the likelihood of long list of medicines and the long duration of treatment!

This predicament should have touched some sensitive nerves in my brain. It signalled that a brilliant solution is ready but wanted some more time to search and find it. It chided and murmured, "You blindly believe in a computer which knows how to generate random strings with "0" and "1". It doesn't want to know what it is but surely knows how to store and where it is. Am I not differently wired? How come you do not trust me when I try to open your eyes? "

This really floored me, literally, but fortunately I was sitting on the bed. After rebooting, the human computer came alive with two suggestions: (1) get some prescription medicines (2) seriously think about many half-finished personal projects. It gave out crisp instructions, namely, to consult the doctor for the first and to finish or dump the second. And try to make the best out of this worst situation, get a nighttime job. It will benefit us all!

As a passing shot, it reminded me, “While you slept, have I not been monitoring all your involuntary functions? Give me a little rest and I will give you some! The cyber expert then decided to run a full scan of the system and reboot. That was a painful bull's eye. No need to say that I was left speechless.

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