ডাকবাংলা

Songs of a Pandemic, the Night and the Sun

I had a conversation with my doctor recently and he asked me what time I wake up generally and I couldn’t help the little laugh that erupted in my throat. My answer was a tentative, “When it is absolutely imperative?”

To be honest, I had always leaned towards the nocturnal. Whether it is because of my love of all things supernatural, or my general need for some quiet I do not know, but this pandemic has definitely turned me into an entirely nocturnal beast. Phone calls at 3 am without any pre-emptive “You up?” are no longer dubious, at least in my case. All my friends just about assume I’d be wide awake, which also leads me to believe I am not the only one whose sleep cycle this worldwide insurgence of pestilence has altered.

It is also a challenge, I believe, to be locked in with your family 24×7, despite, of course, some precious moments of family bonding. 

I find cooking delicacies for them from time to time generally keeps them from being too cranky. To put it in context, I’ve frequented the kitchen so much these last 10 months that I no longer cry while chopping onions. Or it could be because I’m all cried out during my long sleepless nights.

As someone who has just a few months left of college, I have to admit it has been heart-breaking to come to terms with the fact that I will never be able to go back to a normal college life before it ends. It is tough to accept that we shall go out with a truly unimpressive whimper. I bring this up because this is the kind of spiral that my brain tends to go on every other night that I am vamping away. A tornado of overthinking. Mind you, I always punctuate it with a background score.

I can only speak for myself but I was quite content drowning and unravelling my mind in buckets and buckets of music. It has definitely been a top hit on my to-do list and the one thing a pandemic couldn’t stop me from exploring wholeheartedly. 

So, what else entails a life lived in the dark side of the sun? 

The obvious ones are binge-watching shows and reading multiple books in one night. Oh, and how can I forget: binge snacking. It really helps that the fridge is in my room.

On a serious note, a beautiful thing I’ve come to enjoy is watching the dawn break softly. I’ve always loved to watch the sky as the sun winks out, but it is equally wondrous to watch the sun yawn and stretch into the sky every morning. It almost – almost being the key word – makes me want to go for a morning stroll. It is safe to say that has not happened yet.

I have also mastered the art of ignoring the yells and shouts and clangs, basically the cacophony of a Bengali household, in the morning, as I embark on my daytime sleep adventures. In fact, sometimes they miraculously become a part of my dreams. 

I often find out once I’m eventually dragged out of bed that what I saw in my sleep was not quite as fictitious as I’d come to believe. 

Slowly as life is settling around this new normal, the one thing I’m definitely reluctant to let go of are my silent nights until sunrise, but having said that, I can’t wait for the world to be rid off this torturous pandemic.

Illustration by Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay

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