Snorrrrrring

Last weekend I had to go to Calicut on official business; which means an opportunity to travel 2^nd A/C. In the night train, I prepared for sleep at around 2200 hrs; the other three were fast asleep. It might have been half an hour into slumber – I woke up to the roar of a snore, from right above me. Once you latch on to a snore, it is impossible to shake it off. Even the slightest pause in the snore opera would tense you up – when, when is it going to rap out again? Nothing will work to bring down the volume of the snore – pillow, cotton, counting sheep.

More than halfway into my journey, I sit up groggily, only to find the other two victims too awake and sitting huddled up on their berths. We mutter curses. I had to act, because I had to be fresh for the next day’s programme. I get out of the berth, stretch my arm and shake the young fellow. ‘Frr-Hmphrrhh - wh-wh-what?’ ‘If you don’t mind, you are bothering us with your snoring, lie down straight or something’. He does, for the next 10 minutes, by which time I am deep asleep and too tired to notice his performance later on.

When we get up to leave at Calicut, I offer the young fellow some advice. ‘Buy paper plaster available at any medical shop, cut a piece and stick it over your mouth before going to sleep. Snoring is mainly due to breathing through mouth. Hyperventilation has other problems too’

‘Yeah? Does it work?’ ‘Sure’, I said, ‘Ask my wife’.

**************** Balachandran V, Trivandrum 13.11.2009