Instant Somnolence

In Mumbai and maybe in India at large, man and dog alike have mastered the art of instant sleep. There are multiple motivations behind this phenomenon, the first one of course being the much talked about, how under-slept we all are. The other is sleep spaces are at a premium, which might be causing under sleeping in the first place, vocations like call centers with the ‘graveyard shift’ don’t help the 'sleep well' cause.
The most faithful of all animals, leads the evolution of instant sleepers. Stray dogs in Mumbai are leading lights in somnolence of all kinds. It isn’t rare to find a dog that’s nestled under your parked car, sound asleep but with enough warning systems in place to make way the moment you turn the ignition. In the most crowded market places of Mumbai you’ll find millions of legs and hands and in between them mongrels that are fast asleep. They are part of the Mumbaikar’s conscience and I’ve never seem anybody trip over them or step on them. If anybody does, the amateur mongrel lets out a yelp walks 10mts and dozes off again. The seasoned one doesn’t bother. There is another variety here which sleeps in garbage bins, closest to food might be the logic. Then of course there is the concept of the boundary wall dog which is increasingly getting common.This type is under threat from the society watchman whose pet passion is to flog them. So the boundary wall seems to be some kind of a truce that’s been worked out between the men who watch and the dogs who also do. Any threat from an inebriated watchman is followed by a simple ‘jump to the other side’. Once the threat is withdrawn, sleeping places and posture are restored.

Men and women sleep in cabs,autos,buses and while clinging onto local trains. These sleeps are sometimes in sachets until the cell rings or rarely long ones facilitated by an end to end train journey. The tendency to fall over and sometimes lean on the guy next to oneself is frequent and not a pretty sight for onlookers. The real deep sleepers sometimes end up in orgy like positions with each other. When they do alight it's as if they’ve just been revived from a dose of sedative.

Its on the streets of Mumbai that man and dog sleep together. Between families of the homeless sleeping fitfully on the streets, one can find the odd mongrel nestled, that’s looking for no more than some warmth and space for the night.