An Accidental Emending

Since coming back from my week long stay at grandmother’s village, my total mess of a sleep schedule has miraculously fixed itself. Perhaps this self emending is not too miraculous after all.
In the village I would sleep on a charpayi on the roof with my grandmother, aunt, uncle and his children. Of course electricity is still erratic in that North Indian village, people call it bed time when the sky turns dark and wakey-wakey when the dawn breaks.

Witnessing dawn on the cool roof of my grandmother’s house was serene.

The sun hasn’t yet revealed itself in full, it’s still quite cold. One wraps the soft and fluid Bhagalpuri chadar, the silk-cotton sheet weaved in Bhagalpur, tightly around oneself.
“Aaram se soyi, Iram?”, my uncle would ask. “Did you sleep peacefully, Iram?”
And I would smile weakly and let out a sleepy “hmm”.
Then slowly as the sun would climb higher, my awake-ness would do too.
One by one we’ll climb down the stairs; my grandma first, then my uncle, then my aunt, then I. The children would be left sleeping for some more minutes. My two cousins brothers. Light of skin and brown of eyes, after their mother. “Naughtiest kids in the neighborhood”, my aunt tells me. “They are being shareefs (gentlemen) now because you’re here.”

Downstairs I would brush my teeth and perform a quick wuzu, the Islamic ablution. I am not very religious, mind you. But the wuzu is a good way to wash and clean your face, hands and feet in the morning before breakfast.
Mouth, face, hands and feet clean; I would drag a cot near to the firewood stove and sit there waiting for my good aunt to make tea.

The habit of waking up early travelled 300 kilometers with me back to Delhi.
And because I am waking up just a little after the sun, I easily fall asleep by 9 pm.
It’s a bliss to be able to sleep well.
This bliss had evaded me for so long. Most days I would be up till 4 am wasting myself away on my laptop or my phone. When I did fall asleep, it would be a fitful affair. Then I would get up by 9 am with a disabling headache.

Something else I noticed after coming back is my heightened longing to be in nature. I often catch myself looking out of the window, in afternoon, wishing to sit under that giant Banyan tree in the park.
My grandmother’s house has a neem tree which has a swing hanging from it. We used to sit in the soothing shade of this tree during lunch. I can almost feel the coolness of its shade as I write this.

Us-city dwellers have much to learn from the simplicity of rural life, its humanness and its oneness with nature. I am deeply glad for the calm, beautiful experience I had in my rural hometown. I am not sure when I’ll have the chance to return to that forgotten home again. And this thought pains my heart a little. But I shall not be saddened by what cannot be. I shall be grateful for what was.