Maathi Yosi

I have written enough about getting up early, how I enjoy doing it for decades, how it is not a virtue but a good habit etc., etc., This early morning dawned another realization and it was enjoyable. For years, I had always been wanting to read some chosen books , but either the books were not readily available or the search was not properly made or if procured it would have been too lengthy to persist through the week to the next weekend and in the melee of the week, the book would have been forgotten and the embers doused then and there unceremoniously.

At a recent meeting, the popular writer, critic, satirist and lawyer Cho Ramaswamy said that among the many that are not to be left as it is are fire, enmity etc., I would like to add here un-satiated desires too. Such a desire which was sleeping for long like the famed Rip Van Winkle , rose from its years of slumber , when I chose to retire from my hectic activities. In my eagerness to follow it up this desire the search became focused  and when combined with vigor and persistence, I was able to get almost all the books. It included some of yesteryear's classics,  some of the epics which I ought to have finished in my early years, some long sought after ones which were unraveled only now with my persistence. Coupled with these some of the periodicals I have started subscribing to recently along with the daily doses of Newspaper in print and electronically- suddenly I found myself juggling with too many balls, none of which I would like to let go.

Not wanting to feel that I am biting more than I could chew, I thought hard to handle the situation and decided to categorize my activities and prioritize them. Some of the books are from libraries and so are time bound, some are borrowed from friends which could be extended on requests, some are my own but cannot be ignored else I will fall into the same old habit of procrastination. I also found that I need to utilize my strengths to handle this situation and realized that getting up early is one of my bigger strengths. So, I wanted to experiment with prioritizing urgent books and thicker ones with some fixed pages every morning between 5 and 6 AM, before others wake up and with a dumb  television.

After an initial phase of three weeks, I realize that I am able to cover considerable pages on each of these books. A wide spectrum and an array of subjects from religion to politics to fiction also seem to provide a variety to my thoughts. My focus and concentration continues to be at the peak in the early hours I realized, not something new as I had already used this during my college days and hurray, I seemed to have worked out a solution. The only victim is my early peep into the emails and social networking updates., which I feel could always wait. Further, a day when started with such reading gives me so much of positive energy, so much to look forward to, organize and plan not only my thoughts but also the actions for the day- all when the whole house around you is quiet and still snoring and dreaming. Don't be jealous, just try , enjoy and extract some extra hours of the day.