O Sleep! O Gentle Sleep, Nature’s Soft Nurse

Thus said Shakespeare. And while I, with my limited acquaintance with his work,  often feel that he just strings some highfalutin words that sound impressive but mean nothing, I can’t argue with him on this one. Sleep is indeed Nature’s Nurse, a Nurse that comforts, relaxes and restores. 

Conversely, lack of this Nurse in one’s life makes one….. er…. sleepy. Take cadets at the National Defence Academy. Courtesy the rigorous day routine at the Academy that starts at about  5AM and may end, depending on the mood of Genghis,  at 11 PM or 3 AM the next day, Cadets are always sleepy. (If one wants a better understanding of Genghis one can read my earlier posts, here, here, and here. Essentially however, he is a sixth termer who lives under the misguided notion that his primary task is to remain as far away from geniality as feasible.)  

Living as they are thus, under these most trying of circumstances, Cadets develop a deep love for sleep. Sleep is most restful of course if one has a nice comfy bed. But as Genghis allows the bone tired cadets to hit the bed only for about 3-4 hours per night, cadets sleep whenever they get a chance. Humans are where we are today, Darwin tells us (and I have no reason to disbelieve the good man), through a process of evolution. A few weeks of sleepless nights see cadets evolving too; into horses. Because, just like horses, they develop the capability of sleeping even while standing!

Now, let’s take Classrooms.  Naturally, classrooms provide a reasonably comfortable environment for these sleepy heads. I would say, about 80% of cadets in any class just cannot overcome the soporific effect of the lecturer’s drone. Within about 2-3 minutes of the class starting, the faces of cadets take on that dreamy look. Some wander off into dreamland without any fight, whereas some do attempt to stay awake by raising their eyebrows in a herculean but comical effort, to compensate for the drooping upper eyelid (try picturing this).  

No self-respecting lecturer would like this of course and hence they do try to keep the cadets awake. The ‘hands on’ ones try to do so with judicious targeting of the sleeping beauties with deftly thrown chalk projectiles. Others make cadets do calisthenics via the exquisitely uncomfortable ‘murga’ position. (Very good for the ‘Core’. Gives a good stretch to the lower back and quads too.) Others make them stand. But ultimately, they just give up.

Unless, one is Professor SPS. He was made of sterner stuff. Professor SPS thought he had found the secret to keeping cadets awake in his class – by the simple expedient of making them stand on the desk in the last row. The naïve Professor assumed that the humiliation an 18-year-old would feel on being asked to stand on the desk, coupled with the lack of requisite head/lumbar support would keep cadets awake. He was mostly right too. But then, (drum roll), he met his match in Cadet AS (later to become a very distinguished Lt General in the Indian Army).

On sighting Cadet AS getting cosy with the Nurse one day, the good Professor, as usual, asked him to stand up on a desk in the last row. Humiliation completed, the class continued. Till a godawful crash interrupted the class a few minutes later. Everyone’s eyes turned to the last row, the cadets in mild amusement and the professor in wild surmise with his eyes an inch out of their sockets, to see Cadet AS had taken a tumble. Apparently, assuming he had already fully evolved into a horse, Cadet AS nodded off to dreamland, only to find himself on the floor in an untidy heap, with one leg wrapped around his neck in a pose that Baba Ramdev would have given an appreciative nod to.  And remember that dazed look Tom gives when biffed on his head with a baseball bat by Jerry? Stars circling around his head? Yes, he managed a fine approximation of that too.

The other cadets of course, always short on entertainment, did the only thing they could do in this situation, viz guffaw at this welcome diversion. Some, like Cadet AKM (now a very successful corporate honcho) or Cadet VK (now an eminent financial guru with finances to match), were so taken in by the arresting spectacle that they even slapped their thighs in merriment; causing some temporary friction in their interpersonal relations with Cadet AS. Professor SPS of course, did not slap his thigh. Rather, he looked like one who had, in the words of Wodehouse, looked for a leak in a gas pipeline with a lighted candle. A look of deep and profound regret. It would suffice to say that they both learnt a valuable lesson that day.

Now as with anything else in life, people have different approaches towards the same aim. All cricketers for example want to score centuries. But some like Dravid and Pujara plodded their way to the 100 mark, whereas Sehwag believed in smashing the stuffing out of every ball he faced. So is the case with sleeping in class. The three years that I spent at the Academy made me quite an authority on the differing styles cadets adopt when trying to meet their respective Nurses. And since knowledge only multiplies by sharing, here is a gist.

The Forward Headers – The Conformists. About 70% go this normal traditional way, that of nodding their sleepy heads forwards and downwards. These cadets start giving periodic nods, as if in agreement with some points being made by the lecturer. This has the added benefit of portraying the very picture of an eager student. That the eyes are shut and a serene dreamy look has crept onto the face however, detracts a bit from the ‘eagerness’ quotient.

The Reverse Headers – The Rebels. Well actually, I have come across only one such rebel, Cadet SD (now a noted maritime expert and a well sought after speaker at Conferences) who, caring little for convention, would nod, not forward as with any other conformist sleepy head, but backwards; quite like C Ronaldo nudging the ball off a free kick with his back to the goal. Sadly for him, a head lolling backwards sticks out like a St Bernard attempting to hide in a litter of kittens. The inevitable chalk would soon make a disconcerting rendezvous with his now upturned nose.  

The Eyes Wide Shut Types. Eyes closed being a universally recognized symptom of canoodling the Nurse in dreamland, some cadets hoodwink lecturers by managing to sleep with their eyes open. These can be classified as masters of the art and manage to appear alert to a cursory glance. A keener eye would however see that the gaze is glassy and the expression as vapid as a deflated balloon; the eyes though wide open, are effectively, wide shut.

The Elbow Bender. Nothing aids sleep like a good headrest. A good headrest also prevents the head from nodding and thus giving away one’s lack of interest in class. Some cunning cadets therefore, crook an elbow onto the desk and use the palm of the hand as a convenient head rest. The easy to spot nodding thus already having been avoided, all that these cadets need to do is to keep another cadet’s nut ahead, in transit with the lecturer. The only disadvantage of this method is that, some lecturers make a nuisance of themselves by roaming the class. These ‘roamers’ in NDA also have the wholly unhealthy habit of suddenly yanking the elbow, thereby allowing gravity to take over and cause the cadet’s nose to make uncomfortable contact with the hard wooden desk. On the plus side, it does wake you up.

The Dare Devil Front Benchers. All lecturers know that those seeking a snooze head for the back benches. They therefore keep an eagle’s eye on those rows. However, as lecturers have not yet evolved into chameleons, they cannot keep one eye on the back benches and one on the front ones. Some smart cadets, aware of this deficiency, rush in and occupy the front benches like Keen Kumars and exploit what is called in Hindi, ‘chirag tale andhera’.

Now when I think about it, I realize that whatever be the cadets’ chosen methodology, the refreshing snooze in class did not seem to have affected their knowledge intake overly.  With my own Class ‘B’ as an example, the deftest/heaviest sleepers seem to have had the most successful careers. The highest echelons of our hierarchy are sprinkled with aforementioned ex Cadets AS, SD (Navy), AKM and VK of course, but also ex Cadets SD (IAF), KS, RS, SS, AV et al. Only goes to show that one cannot judge an individual merely by the ‘ants crawling’ type of hieroglyphics in their class notebooks. And, three of the most chronic cases among these worthies, are on track to head the Army, Navy and IAF shortly!!