Sun 08 Mar 2020

Sleeping At Night

It feels great to sleep at night. I have a small but a cozy room. It’s not lavish or splending. It doesn’t even hoard much furniture. However it’s as peaceful as it can get.

I wonder about those unfortunate people who couldn’t sleep at night. Some of them are stuck in war-torn countries. Around 150 million people are homeless in the world. Astonishing 1.6 billion people don’t have proper housing. That’s 20 percent of the entire human population.

My parents were living on a rented house when I was born. Had they been poorer, I might have dwelled in some slum. How did I escape the abject poverty? It’s simple it was a biological accident that I had a prenatal privilege. Around 1 in 50 people are born with genetic disorder in the world. I again won a gene lottery to escape those pangs of misfortune. All men are created equal, they say, only if they had the same lottery of genes & privileges.

As a kid I once went with my father to a far relative to spend a few days. Their house was close to the railway stations. Every hour or so I could hear the loud whistle of the train breezing past. I couldn’t sleep for those days. Once I was back to my home, I slept like a sloth & dreams were like manna from heaven. I wonder how people slept in such apartments?

Currently I sleep in my apartment at night without the annoyance of traffic or train. Though I fear burglary, but not enough to lose my sleep. I believe sleeping without fear is a human right. It’s a privilege that I am grateful everyday.