[This ought to have been the sixth post, but got left behind due to oversight]

The other day I wrote about how I woke up an hour too early, in the wee hours of the morning too, and got ready for my walk, stopping myself in the nick of time from walking out of my home at that unearthly hour only by a timely glance at my watch. It brought back the memory of something that happened years back.

Some years back, I was on my way to the US. The flight was late leaving the shores of my beautiful land, the wee strip of land to the southernmost tip of India. Hence I had to stay overnight at Dubai and catch the next morning’s flight to SFO.

After hours of waiting for my new boarding pass to be issued, I managed to walk miles and miles, Dubai airport is so spread out, till I found where the hotel vehicle was waiting and eventually reached the hotel and checked into my room. After depositing my carry bag in the room, I came down for breakfast, all food for the day plus the room, courtesy of the airlines, and had a sumptuous one as I was really, really hungry.

Back in my room, I had nothing much to do other than read a book, scroll through the phone, and activities of that sort. Or watch telly. I hadn’t slept the whole of the previous night as my flight had left India at the unearthly (There it is again, that word!) hour of 4 a.m. But for some reason, maybe it was this staying alone by myself in a foreign country for the first time, I wasn’t feeling sleepy.

Lunch time came and went, but I skipped it, having had a late and filling breakfast. I’ll go straight to dinner next, I thought. By evening though I was drooping like a wilted flower. Lack of sleep always does that to me. In the meantime, the L&M and the First Born called the hotel and connected to my room. Talking to them perked me up a bit.

After they had rung off, I picked up a book and decided to read some more until it was a decent time for dinner. It was only 6-30 p.m. That’s the last I remembered of that day. The next thing I knew I was waking up feeling all refreshed. The stomach though was having none of it. Refreshed you may be, but I NEED FOOD, it stated in no uncertain terms.

I checked my watch to see if it was time to go down to the restaurant. A late dinner perhaps? The time it showed was 3-30, and that’s a.m. if you please. I had missed dinner by several hours. Obviously no one was going to serve me dinner now. I was pretty sure of that.

Though my stomach was stating its protest in no uncertain terms, I ignored it. I had more important things on my mind. It was 3-30 a.m. I had to take the first bus to the airport, which left at 5 a.m.. So I better get on with having a bath, getting dressed et al so I could pack my things and go down to the lobby for checking out of the hotel. Who knew if the bus would get full and I’d be left behind?

So I brushed, bathed, dressed, packed my bag and found I still had time to kill. It was only 4-15 a.m. I switched on the television. Nothing interesting. Bored, and not in a mood to pull out my book and read, I kept flipping channels. And then I saw it, in the corner of the screen. It said, 3 a.m. WTH! I looked at my watch, my phone, my iPod. They ALL said in one voice, albeit a silent one: 4-30 a.m.

Yeah, you have guessed it by now without me having to spell it. All of my gadgets were on IST. Indian Standard Time. Dubai time was after all one and a half hours behind Indian time. Those were not days when your phone automatically changed the time depending on where you were. It had to be done manually, or at least one had to remember what time it showed so as not to make a mistakes like I did.

I am writing this from memory. I probably woke up even earlier than mentioned here and had even more time on my hands to murder in ingenious and creative ways. Finally, when I had just about exhausted all fresh ideas, I stepped out of the boring hotel room to catch that first bus. A bustling airport was certainly a better option.

©️ Shail Mohan 2025