My songs of sleepless nights

When you think of staying up late, who comes to mind? Surely, you know many people around you who stay up all night. If they are very close, they might occasionally call you in the middle of the night, causing some annoyance. I had a close friend-like brother like that. Knowing my birthday is just gone by, he took me to a five-star hotel in Dhaka for a treat in the midnight. There was no food left at any of the hotel's restaurants, so we ended up at Star Kabab in Karwan Bazar.

Once, he called me at 3 in the morning. He was writhing in pain from a toothache. He couldn't find any of his known dentists. I couldn't reach anyone I knew either. Eventually, we had to go to an emergency room at a hospital to alleviate his pain.

Another time, he called around 2:30 in the morning. A false post was circulating on Facebook, claiming that a former professor of Ananda Mohan College in Mymensingh was begging for treatment. He wanted to help immediately, either by taking money himself or sending someone. Later, it turned out the story was not true.

Not only in such emergencies, but he would also call late at night for trivial matters. Sometimes to praise a piece of writing, sometimes to point out mistakes. He would call late at night to discuss politics, both local and global. As an elder brother, he would end the conversation with an instruction to meet him the next evening. That wasn't always possible. For various reasons, I couldn't join him for evening chats very often. After he passed away, this left a sense of regret.

He was one of our close ones. There are others like him. Interestingly, many of these night owls I know are exceptionally talented. Does this mean that the gifted and creative people stay up late?

Some research claims that people with higher intelligence or IQ are more active at night, leading them to go to bed later. Those with an IQ of 75 or lower tend to sleep by 11:41pm, while those with an IQ of 123 or higher stay up past 12:30am.

Regardless of what research says, the most creative person among Bengalis, Rabindranath Tagore, did not stay up late. He would go to bed before midnight and wake up at 4am. I couldn't find information on his IQ, although it is known that Stephen Hawking had an IQ of 190. Due to physical reasons, Hawking couldn't stay up late either.

One of my interests, both locally and abroad, is in people from my community. One such person is Khushwant Singh. There are endless stories about him, particularly regarding his alleged drinking and supposed fondness for women. Many might think he had a habit of staying up late.

Is that really the case?

The close person I mentioned earlier passed away before reaching 50. Khushwant Singh, on the other hand, died just a year before hitting a century. In his autobiography and various interviews, he addressed the infamous rumors about his drinking and fondness for women.

Khushwant Singh claimed that because he wrote about sexuality and advocated for drinking, people belittled him.

"But the person who gets up at 4:30am and starts writing, who has written over 80 books, where would he find the time to indulge in women? Yes, it's true that many beautiful women come to me. Drinking sessions might happen occasionally. But when it's 15 or 20 minutes left to do my job, I would say, "That's enough, you may leave now, I have to get back to work,'" Khushwant said.

He would wake up at 4:30am every day. He would have two pegs of alcohol in the evening. But he always had dinner at 8pm and went to bed by 8:45pm. There was never an exception. Even when his friend Giani Zail Singh was the President of India, Khushwant, or rather Khushwant's wife, asked Zail Singh to leave by 8pm because Khushwant had to go to bed by 8:45pm.

Obviously for those who follow such a routine and even for those who go to bed late, a crisis time has arrived. It's like the sleep theory in Rabindranath Tagore's "Shishu Bholanath":

"From wakefulness to sleep, and back again,
Many times I wonder, why, for what purpose."

Why do we stay up late?

Regardless of IQ, many of us have turned into night owls, especially since mid-June. This will rise from 21 June and continue until mid-July. Why do we stay up late?

Tagore has answered this as well. He wrote:

"Then youfall asleep,
I stay awake,
To keep them amused with various games."

The "games" he mentioned have brought us to the phase of staying up late, turning us into night owls.

The T20 World Cup started on 2 June. The Super Eight stage begins on Wednesday (19 June). The Tigers have reached there. Matches will be played daily at 6:30am and 8:30pm Bangladesh time. If it were just the Cricket World Cup, it might be manageable. However, the Euro Football Championship, starting in mid-June, has games scheduled for 7pm, 10pm, and 1am our time. Adding to the excitement, Copa America kicks off on 21 June, featuring fan-favourite teams Brazil and Argentina. The matches for Copa America are scheduled at 4am, 6am, and 7am, making it even more challenging for Bangladeshi fans.

Therefore, sports enthusiasts will need to stay up all night to catch the games. If they want to catch up on sleep, they'll have to sleep during the day, disrupting their regular routines. For those willing to turn their lives into a night shift for a few weeks, they might find themselves humming to Rabindra Sangeet:

"What nectar has the moonlight drunk today,
That in its joy, it has no secrets left to hide,
Breaking through the darkness, it has shared all it had.
The southern breeze has opened every door,
In its invitation, 
I wander through the forests,
Bringing with me,
My songs of sleepless nights."