Before starting the story, let’s set the background. I am a really really light sleeper. Even a teeniest bit of light and sound of someone breathing a little loudly can wake me up. So I am accustomed to sleeping in pitch black kind of darkness where you can’t even see your own hand. And as I sleep with my younger sister, I can easily shut her up if she makes any noise. Everything used to be in my control.
But recently I shifted to hostel where I had to share my room with two other people. And to my horror, my room wasn’t pitch dark there. A lot of light came to our room from the corridor’s tube light of building opposite to my room. So then came my sleep mask which was still uncomfortable but I could sleep thanks to it. But then came the exam season. Going back to the background, I never get stressed about exams. I can’t study for more than 2 hours continuously and night study is not my cup of tea. I score fairly good marks without compromising on my sleep. But sadly and quite obviously my roommates were not like that. They studied day and night without breaks and I had extreme difficulty in sleeping with lights on. More often I would end up sobbing at 2 am over my helplessness. I couldn’t sleep anywhere else as that was the only room I had and that led to a lot of irritability on subsequent days.
After escaping those hellish days, I can say that I have understood the importance of perfect environment for sleep. So yesterday, when I saw some pigeons struggling to sleep, it broke my heart.
Yesterday, there was some problem in our electric meter, so we were waiting for some technicians to arrive. It was around 12 am, I was standing in my balcony with my sister and we noticed how well lit our area was thanks to multiple streetlights. The context behind this discussion was that despite of this well lit street, a stupid person had requested officials for one more streetlight near our house.
We were furious as that may lead to a lot of light in our house too which is highly undesirable. It was then that my sister pointed out to two pigeons. They were sleeping in tiniest space where they could barely stand beneath a first floor window. It has always been fascinating to see the pigeons sleeping. I have always wondered how they can sleep while standing. But these pigeons were not sleeping comfortably. Their chests were fluffed up which is a clear indication that they were stressed. They had took shelter inside that window to avoid the light coming from streetlights.
I felt so bad for them and was instantly reminded of my own experience. Then I remembered how there are no more sparrows or other birds in our city any more. I kind of knew about it all but seeing it in front of me really made me wonder. Why have we done all this to our nature. Nature built natural street lights in form of stars but our greed has drove us insane. We can easily go and sleep inside our air conditioned pitch dark rooms but what about these birds. They must feel so helpless and sad. But why would we care, as we know we are originally animals only. Our well being comes first. But sometimes I really wonder that is there some kind of solution anywhere which could help humans coexist with all our fellow organisms peacefully and happily ever after.
Librocubicularist soul 