Sleeping with a Lion : Blog # 219

Sleeping with a Lion

Please play and listen to the video here before you read the blog :)

Whenever I have read about or heard about people committing heinous crimes in a fit of rage, I used to wonder as to what can make people so annoyed or worked up. Yesterday, I got a taste of how such incidents happen. I was travelling by bus from home to Chennai after the weekend. I am among those who cannot get even a blink worth of sleep while travelling in a bus. Thankfully, it was a new bus and hence very clean. It came right on time and they were even playing a nice movie. I told myself “Buses aren't that bad after all!” Little did I know all that was going to change in a minute!

The lights were dimmed and I was adjusting the seat to get a comfortable sitting position. Right then, there was a growl near my right ear. My first instinct was to think “How on earth did Casper, my 2 year old full grown Rottweiler get in the bus!” I slowly turned to see my co passenger snoring away to glory. Usually, snoring doesn't bother me much. My friends say I too snore. So I am not exactly in a position to judge. Moreover it is a condition which the person cannot do much about.

But this guy’s snoring started off as a mini motorcycle being started. I told myself that it will stop soon. But it was just the warm up! Minutes later, it graduated in to a full blown concert of sorts. The movie got over. The only sound in the bus was this person snoring. It was so loud that people in 3 rows in front of us and equally to the back could hear us. My empathy prevented me from waking him up. Then he started doing variations (akin to arohanas and avarohanas in Carnatic music). It goes up and up and reaches a crescendo. When I thought it was over and as I heaved a sigh of relief, he started from exactly where he stopped. I lost it and woke him up. He was duly ashamed and apologetic and he turned to the other side. Just as when I was beginning to feel bad, here comes the growl!!!

What surprised me was that usually people snore and stop. This guy’s consistency was to die for. He wouldn't miss a beat. Now, it had become like a tractor on the road with a failed silencer. I even recorded it on WhatsApp and sent it across to my friends. They said they also haven’t heard anything of this sort. My patience was waning. I started thinking of ways to silence him. I thought of landing a punch right on his nose so that it will open up and stop the sound. Then I thought what if the growl becomes louder! At one point, I pictured his head being smashed in to the glass window. I even thought of going the CIA way. I had a blanket and there was a bottle of water too. I thought I will do a bit of water boarding. I started elbowing him every time he snored and he took that as frikkin encouragement!

The beauty of it was that he continued it all through night till 7:30 in the morning today! I have never been through an endurance test of this sort. He woke up and asked me “Where have we reached”? I had half a mind to tell him that he has reached my skull and another minute more of snoring, he would have cracked it open with that sound. I also wanted to give him some career advise “Go and do dubbing for the Lion in the MGM cartoon”!

Arun Babu