Waking up has been quite a pain for the past few months. A wrinkled face, a heavy hung-over head  (sans drinking), and eyes which need heavy machinery to open are just a few aspects of 7:00 a.m each morning. The energy of the old days has ebbed away, springing out of bed now means fixing an appointment with the friendly neighbourhood orthopaedic surgeon and purchasing a six pack (six ice packs that is). Creaking, groggy, stiff and stupid only begin to describe the end of slumber and commencement of a new day of the same old grind.

John Arbuckle, Alice and Henry Mitchell, Dexter’s parents and other innumerable american comic strip/toon characters seem to be suffering from the same phenomenon, only in their case, coffee is the remedy. I’ve tried their solution - a limit (brown -> black liquid), and let me assure you, apart from giving one a bad case of indigestion and an infinitely bitter taste in the mouth it doesn’t do much.  That is one aspect of the american way that will not be aped (apart from, testing military equipment in middle east states, electing “brilliant” heads of state, so and so forth).

So does ASIMO have better flexibilty ? Most definately. My prehistoric sibling (age gap 5 years) points out that this is a welcome to the life of adults. Stockpiles of work, deadlines, skipping meals, erratic sleeping patterns, fatigue, a drooping posture, vitamin deficiencies and of course sweet dreams which begin after 4:00 a.m. (Even though I called it a day at 10:00 p.m. last night) seem to be a constant. Not a single morning goes by without the reminders of missing the carpool ; courtesy mom, and yet 8:00 a.m. tends to 8:10, and I finally reach by 8:20. (Shalabh, in case you haven’t noticed, I have stopped promising punctuality – cause it ain’t gonna happen !! ) 

 So what is the solution ? Here I draw a BLANK. My infinite experience tells me, there is no solution, this is life. Who said we live in a democracy ? Its a monarchy and we are subjects of his excellency – Time. It is such a dichotomy, on one hand it seems, life is moving so fast, it might just go faster than the speed of light someday (Now that will make for an interesting special theory of relativity case study)  but on the other hand everything seems transfixed in a state of heavy inertia. However, there are some things which warrant no ambiguity, like the need for 24 hrs to become 48, like the ominous signs which foretell larger stockpiles of work, more fatigue and less sleep await me. So mom, won’t you let me sleep for 5 more minutes ??