Instant Sleep Syndormzzzzz……ISS

How much time one takes to fall asleep from a fresh mind? You might be surprised if I say that I take mostly 2 minutes to sleep anywhere, any position! If someone comes around and tells me that I have 10 minutes, I would be first checking if I can find a place where I can sit and doss off for five minutes. Yes you got it right, I am the one person who stands & sleeps in train, before the train even leaves the railway station, sleeps before the flight even leaves the runway and sleeps even before the KSRTC bus leaves my stop. Best part was during the monthly commute from Bangalore to Trivandrum in Volvo. The bus comes around Madiwala and leaves to Hosur. I have hardly seen anything after BTM bridge which is like 2 km from Madiwala, By that time I would be fast asleep watching some amazing dreams dancing with the current bollywood heroine or playing the last ball sixer for my cricket team (In dream you never know what u end up doing!)
The other day, my roomie and I was discussing something about a movie which we saw. He was so much into it that he went on describing the cast, the script etc etc. I reached my bed by the time he started about the Movie screen play. Next day he told me that he went on for another 20 minutes before my ‘hmms’ died out. But truly, I remember only the movie name, rest was just ’hmmms’ from sleep. I am surely happy to have this trait from my mom because I see lot of people struggling to sleep at times. They do so many things to get sleep and they wakes up right after 6 hours and wander around the house like orphan-ghost ( Anaada prethanghal) while folks like me sleep happily until one of the life’s primary needs like hunger / nature calls disturbs me! This trait is carried through my mom’s family. She had started watching Jurassic park three times, but by the time the helicopter reaches the park and the old man gets out of the helicopter (an amazing water fall scene), my mom would be sound asleep. The best part is when she falls asleep while talking to someone( I realized that even I can do that last week). It had happened so many times with me, I will be enthusiastically narrating the current day cricket match about my imaginary swinging Yorker or about the big sixer I hit, and I wait for her response ( a too good, or great ‘ Kollameda’), will leave me waiting for a while and I realize after a while.

I have seen people do these the following things to get some / good sleep

1. To take a bath at mid night so that they can sleep for couple of hours
2. They smoke so that they get sleep
3. They watch movies until their eyes swell up and sleep
4. They take sleeping tablets to sleep
5. They take shots (Taquela) / alcohol to get some sleep
6. They burn out their bumps in gym for 3 hours so that they get tired and sleep for couple of hours ….and folks like me fall asleep talking to people, listening to seminars and lately attending client meetings …I was lucky to keep my phone in mute for the last call otherwise someone would have caught me snoring on the call.
But if I am ever feeling sleepless, a glance to my office inbox or a sneak view of my current certification material will make my eyes heavier.
One of the biggest problems created by this ‘instant sleep syndrome’ is tears. I get a lot of tears the moment I feel sleepy. In my school days, this was a standard question I used to get.

Teacher : Why ‘R’ whts so senti about my class, why are you crying ?
Me : Nothing mam, something fell on my eyes (trying to give a fresh face)
Fellow classmate: No teacher, he get tears when he feels sleepy …
followed by cracking laughter sound in the class…..the drill of staning on the desk, wahing up my face or sit next to girls bench continues. ( Now even if I sleep in the call no one asks me to sit next to girls L )This ISS continued to my engineering classes also, where my teachers found me very sentimental about their subject and they instantly threw me out of their class. I don’t know how I got so sentimental in mathematics class as well! But invariably mathematics teacher found me crying In his class like ‘My titanic sunk!!!’
Guess what, the trait still follows me and now a day I get sentimental in client meetings and clients are often moved with my involvement in the escalation P1 and L1 meetings. May be they haven’t seen a man crying when there is an escalation in his project!

The KD story ......

If you are wondering what KD stands for, it is ‘Kaama Devan’ which roughly translates to ‘Eros’ in Greek philosophy. It all started when one of my friend ‘Youth’ took a 7 day wonder diet. He took this diet and lost 12 pounds in one week. So everyone (who got some extra pounds to lose) got inspired and took the challenge. For more details on the diet plan click here

I was wondering about the Americans ads about diet – healthy diet – happy diet etc. I never thought that people are so mad about diet and their looks until a small tummy which looks like tortoise on a pillar started to appear on me! But earlier this week I saw to what extend people care. Our so called crazy4, except ‘me’ started the GM-Diet plan. I am an underweight - mal nutritional guy who will die if I skip a lunch :D (Most of my friends do agree to this ;)). These three folks out of crazy 4 D, P and A), they just live to eat! So I thought this would be an eventful week. The first day was full of enthusiasm on dieting. There were animated discussion about the things they are going to eat, a list of things they would eat and how wonderful they are going to look after one week.
The first day we ended up visiting Stewlenords/ and bought vegetables for the wonder soup. Also picked up 6 packs of soup mix from Shop N Stop to make the soup! First day, they can have only fruits and vegetables. The after effects were visible! My friend P ran into the car with a bag of apples munching into it yelling out how tasty an apple can be! Then they prepared the wonder soup with little customizations, as they put only 4 onions in place of 6 and added three packs of soup mix instead on one. But believe me; the soup did taste really good for us. US – Me and ‘B’. We were not in the diet plan in the first place ( Intro for B - best Chappathy maker I have seen as he make very soft tender chappathy, which even I can eat 8 or 9 one go) So the wonder soup was more of an appetizer for us and the whole dinner for the KD’s. The dialogue of the day came from A!

‘A’ looking at the bag of potato chips. : Can we have an exception for two potato chips?
D : No, rules are rules
P : No way, you only told us that there will be moments of hunger which will test out patience, so no to anything fried.
A : Don’t listen to all the crap I said then, now the lays chips looks so crisp. I am ….
P: No, we are all together in this, don’t you stand for your word?
A : Nee onnum nannavillada ….@#$%^&* and drank a glass of water and went inside.

(Cursing that you guys will never improve on a lighter note looking at US who are eating away chappthy+ curry + curd with side –baked potato fry when the three are eating only fruits and vegetables for the whole day!)

Day 2.
The initial enthusiasm is missing, three of them A, D and P are just waiting for the breakfast. The diet doesn’t allow them to have tea. So they came to the cafeteria and had boiled potato with some pepper and salt. Second day is the toughest as it is a vegetable only day. By 3 O’ clock in the evening, I could see what a day’s fasting can do to ppl. Three of them where looking like tired plants on a desert. Their cheeks were already sagging. At dinner time, they had again started with cut vegetables (were eating just raw + boiled broccoli with pepper) and the wonder soup. Wonder soup which tasted good yesterday was not so tasty for them today. Even fruits where not included. Between this,
D: From today I re-define ‘Dried dates’ as fruits, so I am going to eat them and started munching into a pack of honey dipped dried dates
P:I cannot stand this torture, I am going sleep! Oh my god, just get us to 12 O clock, at least I can start eating some fruits and give rest to this boiled vegetables , cabbage and lattice

Day 3

They had baby carrots for breakfast and were just praying to get over the next day. It seems that by end of day 3, guys were already into a mode where they are getting used to ‘Starving’. Three of them were cursing about how bad the wonder soup taste and still having it as it was their only option other than vegetables. Three of them looked energy less and were roaming around like zombies.

Day 4

This was an anticipated day for P as he loves milk. He was planning all along about how to distribute the rationed 8 bananas to the entire day so that he won’t feel hungry. The three glasses of milk were a little compromised by taking big glasses. Folks were feeling a little relived as they got through the toughest day where they were eating cabbage and carrots for the whole day. I wonder, rabbit eats these two their whole life and still they are so energetic!

Day 5

By day 5, D had lost 8 to 9 pound, P lost 9 pounds and A lost 7 pounds. They were very happy about their wait. Day 5 is the feast day and rice looked so delicious to them. Again there was a debate whether it is one cup of uncooked rice a day or one cup of cooked rice. Finally they settled for one glass of cooked rice. The tomato part was again compromised with fruits

Day 6

Again a vegetable day and folks were tired of things. They wanted to lose 12 pounds and from 9 pounds, 3 pounds didn’t look that good. So they left the vegetable day to fruits and a little bit of bread. Also D and I had to travel out of state which disturbed the whole balance. D was again tested as we went into a ‘Karakudi Resturant’ famous for Tamil style ‘ Naatu kozhi curry’ (Country chicken curry) But he held his restrain by eating only rice and a little bit of curry without taking any meat. But he consumed a lot of fruits. ‘A’ was settling with a proper pulishery (Curd curry) and one glass of rice and hibernated rest of the day in his house. P rigorously followed the plan and had only vegetables and one cup of rice

Day 7

We all were sitting in a Mexican restaurant munching into cheese quesadillas and fried chicken wings. Three of them were convinced that the ‘Wonder Diet’ will work out with 10, 9 and 9 pounds reduced from their body. There was a visible change in each of them, but a little tiredness also. So after 7 days, the folks didn’t turn to a KD, but they did turn some faces around and made them ask
’What happened? You are looking different!’ !!!
Also at least three or four folks started following the diet plan looking at the KD’s change
Following a diet plan and getting out of it when you feel like, looks funny. But looking at our life style, the kind of food we eat, I am pretty sure that we end up following stricter diet rules by the time we will be 35 to keep us alive until 50. It is not always the food, but the life style which makes us so vulnerable. Less water, more of sugar, carbohydrate, and no or very less exercise, a lot of oil….I guess this is enough to reduce once life by 10 years! It is not so long before each of us will hear what to eat and what not to, from a dietician or a doctor! One thing I learned is following a diet is not fun! So if I can take control of what I eat now (How much), I can at least taste these delicious food items until I recognize taste!