August 10 to 12, 2021: This is nothing

August 10 to 12, 2021: This is nothing. I am cheating on my writing by collapsing three days into one narrative. But then sometimes the days blend into each other through a cycle of slumber and work that the distinction disappears. From collaborators looking to write papers on the state of social science research in the midst of remote opportunities, to film makers trying to raise money for a worthy project, to preparing for the new arrivals who my wife and I will chaperone for the next year, to the conversations helping a bondhu prepare for vital work, the days just blended into each other. Nothing is defined by time or place. Spent a couple of hours sitting on the stairway connected to people. It just felt nice sitting there and having an important conversation. This all started when a research colleague came up with the idea of including me in a Webinar. Way in the distant past of March 2020. Evidently people liked what I did. And yes, I will say it, “thanks to the pandemic,” I had opportunities for professional exposure in so many forums across the World that it would have never happened without the World accepting that a video link does offer opportunities for work. All I had to do was make two “bunkers,” shut off from the “natural.” Controlled by Alexa, perfectly tuned to whatever sleep cycle I needed in any 24-hour period. A bondhu had recently said “this guy does not sleep.” Perhaps the pandemic has taken away the strange pleasure of the “sleep.” The one that lethargizes you early in the morning when you want to stay in bed a little longer. I have not had that kind of sleep since I moved into my bunkers. There are no light signals in these spaces to indicate when it is night or day. When there is an important event in any place it is time for me to be awake. When nothing is happening in any of the real places, I slumber. My trusted health monitor, to which I am tethered by my wristwatch keeps count. Yes, you have accomplished your 6,000 steps and your 5 hours and 25 minutes of sleep – in pieces – not in a stretch. This does not work for all, I understand, but I have been trained well, I feel. Our seniors from the days of college at the Indian Institute of Technology, way back when, trained us well, especially in sleep control. That rigor of everything in life – from the grind of work to the euphoria of fun – got ingrained in some of us. Even now, I occasionally look around me, when things are not going well, and I only have to say to myself, “this is nothing.” The training of those five years seems to carry forth. In a meeting with a senior colleague, I was reminded that training matters – as he said – when you see the opportunity the training kicks in – from the days of IIT to the nose grinding discipline of a junior faculty – its all training. It is perhaps possible to train the body to live in a “global” time zone and fall into its rhythm. As a bondhu said in describing the clients, “I know the response will come when they wake up.” In this continuously connected World, I am trying very hard so that no one has to wait for me to wake up. If only I could always be awake. The days blend into each other because in January 2021, a switch was turned on, and I realized, what my son has been telling me for a long time, that I have more to do, and it is time to get into doing those things. Not sleep. Let the training kick in. Cannot help but return to Beatles on this, “It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log.” Keep people guessing.