India trip March 2023 - A stubborn Jet lag

My jet lag still persists. A stubborn Jet lag can be a real pain in you know what. My body clock simply refutes to relinquish the US Time Zone as I still get up between 3 to 4 O'clock every morning and my body refusing to sleep any further. Jet lag for me now seems to get too stubborn to relent as I age. It feels miserable to get up so early in morning, without being able to sleep any further. Kishore Kumar's song from Rajesh Khanna's movie "AAP KI KASAM" - KARWATE BADALTE RAHE SAARI RAAT HUM (turning sides on bed for whole night) never sounded more prophetic. 

Thanks to internet and Facebook I could keep myself preoccupied for a while until the tom-tomimg of GHANTA (brass plate) from a nearby MATH (monastery) around 5 AM sounded like music to me, much more musical than the sporadic KAWALIs (group music) from stray dogs all night long. No sooner the gang of musical mongrels on the Eastern end of the street finished with a sequence of wooo.. wooo..woof.. than their western side competitive cousins responded with their musical version of wooo.. wooo...woof. The Kawali sessions continued for the better part of the night with intermittent breakes of15-30 minutes.

The long arduous wait in dark paved way to dawn. The eastern sky grew brighter, turning crimson red as the light morning light slowly strived to drive away the darkness. By now the early rays of morning sun sprinkled the trees with a golden hue, giving their dust covered leaves a shining copper coating. The chirping of birds turned louder, so also the sound of GHANTA from the nearby "MATH" (Monastery) - sounding the end of the morning session of prayer. Amidst the banging of GHANTA and GINI (musical instruments made from Brass), wafted in a Bengali Bhaki (devotional) song through the dust laden mango, jackfruit, coconut and betel nut trees. I could grasp the following stanza of the Bengali Bhakti Bhajan -

JASHODA JANANI DAE, 
BAL KRESHTO KHAE RE.
SONAR NUPUR BAJE,
HARI JENE JAE RE.

Roughly transliterated...

Mother Yashoda gives,
Kid Krishna to eat.
Golden anklet makes sounds,
Wherever God goes around.

I went over to the balcony to take a peek at the outside world. You must have heard about Sand mafia, Land mafia etc. Have you heard of Flower mafia ? They come at wee hours of the morning, steal flowers from the frontyard gardens and sell them off to the larger market segment. My senior citizen parents can hardly do anything to stop them.

Once a man leaned over our fence and pulled down a flower tree to surreptitiously steal low hanging flowers. When he saw me noticing, he pulled away and moved on to the next house. But not every one notices my Peeping Tom eyes. In one of my prior trips I saw someone stealing flowers looked left and right to make sure no one was noticing before letting out a bombadistic fart. Glad he didn't look up to make me miss something to write about.

A Bull was placidly chewing cud under a big mound of sand in front of house where the never ending Sewage laying work has been going on for time immemorial. Couple of mongrels sleeping nearby noticed the tectonic shift in their surrounding as the giant Bovine suddenly stood up, shrugging off sand from his body. The doggies shifted further off to a nearby semi-broken concrete culvert perceived by them as a more secured, safer location from the big bully Bull.

Two pariah dogs were indulged in a face off, their protruding mouths barely a feet from each other. The bigger, aggressive one about to prounce on the other like a dragon in fury. The smaller doggie in a defensive, crouching pose was snarling at its bigger opponent with its tails well tucked within the hind legs. The barking and snarling continued for a few minutes until they made a truce and went their separate way.

From a distance approached our local Newspaper walla (guy). He swung and threw the newspaper past our main gate with immaculate accuracy and moved on to the next house. One of the dogs tried to sniff his way near to a man walking holding milk packs only to be rudely shooed away - HEY HEY JA JA (Hey, hey, go away). The doggie nonchalantly walked away. 

A jet lag can be an irritant, a nuisance especially for those plying between India and United States. The long journey can put one's body clock out of whack, which varies from individuals who experience little or no jet lag, to those who have to make a trip to the Doctor's office for medication when their jet lag stubbornly refuses to relent. Eventually most get over it. For me it lasts for a good 5 to 7 days, now more on the later side. As this is a very short trip, by the time the jet lag will be over I will be on my way back. More later...