Sun, Mosquitoes and Photo Frame

I have had three sleepless nights. Every hour of lost sleep supposedly drops IQ points significantly. I don’t worry much about it since mine wasn’t a significant number to begin with.

I am in one of the two places which I call as my hometown – Madurai. I have many childhood memories attached to this place. I like this place since it kindles those memories back to life.

The prime attraction here is the Meenakshi temple but my divinity is with the resturants around this area. The food here in Madurai is absolutely the best.

The Biriyani, my favorite food is even more favorite when it comes from here. Mutton Chukka is another delicacy which I enjoy. The “Jigarthanda” dessert to close the course is the perfect anesthesia.

A heavy round of hogging these tantalizing mouth watering food makes me drowsy. The drowsiness is amplified due to the tiredness of the travel. I am even more exhausted because of my packed schedules of meeting my relatives during the day. I am now running on fumes, hungover and yearning for sleep.

It has been 3 days since I got any sleep longer than 5 hours. I find it difficult to sleep because of the sun, the mosquitoes and a photo frame.

The temperature here is uncomfortably hot by the day. It is averaging around 37 degree Celsius. The sweat keeps dripping from my forehead, even with two fans on. I couldn’t manage to sleep for more than 15 mins during the day.

The nights bring with it the mosquitoes. There are so many and that one can never kill enough. These blood thirsty vampires are not repelled by the repellents. They continue to hum near the ears making it difficult to sleep. Any attempt at swatting them ends up with me giving a tight slap to my own cheek!

Their bites? Always in the most inconvenient places. The hardest place is near the elbow. The skin there presents an unique challenge. It is like a cloth when the arms are straight and won’t provide necessary grip to give it a deep relieving scratch. If you tighten it by bending at the elbow then the sharp angle makes it difficult to get a satisfactory scratch on the itch.

Today, my third day, I was too tired to be disturbed by the heat or the mosquito. Today, there was the incident with the photo frame which woke me.

My aunt wakes up at 4am. I had been complaining to my aunt about the lack of sleep. She tried to be careful and left the room without making much noise. Before she left the room she thoughtfully increased the speed of the fan.

I had no idea that this fan had a Turbo mode. It started a violent tornado and this sudden wind briefly woke me up. But I could manage to quickly fall asleep.

The tornado nevertheless continued. It kept moving things and finally the photo frame fell. It fell with a loud thud. I shot up, wide awake.

Here I am!