Like most of us with smart phones, my phone IS my alarm clock. And as of now, there is an alarm on my phone for 2:00 PM every day. No, it’s not my ‘Lunchtime’ alarm. I do in fact, on most days, wake up after most people have had their lunch. And I’m not the only one.
Except for classes, almost everything else of importance at IIT Bombay comes to life only after the sun has set. Meetings start at midnight, canteens are open till 4 in the morning, events go on till they have to, and football matches are scheduled at 2:00 AM in hostels. Since all students compulsorily live inside the campus, the problem of commute and parental approval is eliminated. All institute activities can thus be scheduled till an obscenely late hour.
Most importantly there are no restrictions on movement in and out of the campus at any time whatsoever. So you might see people heading out to eat or for a movie at 3 in the morning.
The nocturnal spirit of the campus is, at least partly, borrowed from the city of Mumbai itself. It literally is the city that never sleeps. There is not a single hour in the day when you cannot get an auto from A to B. Although trains and buses halt briefly at night, auto rickshaws, and since UBER and Ola have come in, even cabs are easily hired, at reasonable rates (at least for now), at any time. Apart from that there is a plethora of midnight buffets and all night eateries that help Mumbai retain its ‘City that never sleeps’ title. Additionally, security, especially for women, is not an issue in Mumbai unlike in other metros.
Not just the extracurricular activities, but even students involved in research or maggus (a term coined for the nerds among nerds) find the night more convenient to work or study. The night brings with it, peace and relief from worldly distractions (except of course, Facebook).
The only reason the world prefers the day to the night, I believe, is because of the availability of natural light. But if most of your life is spent in front of an illuminated screen and inside a campus where lighting is not a problem, I believe it is only natural to prefer the soothing coolness of night to the oppressive and humid heat of day.
It is not that Professors are totally aloof from this unusual temporal shift in the institute activity cycle. They, in fact, acknowledge it, and sometime take full advantage of it to conduct exams and tutorials as late as 11pm. So it might be said that the faculty at least acknowledge, if not accept, the love that the student community has for the night.
While enjoying the convenience of the flexibility of timings, I sometimes feel that it is almost too good to be true. There has to be a downside to all this. And there is. When we leave the campus for our homes or for jobs, the distorted sleep cycles can cause angry/concerned parents and disgruntled bosses. Also, it is not everywhere that you can step out to have a paneer paratha at 1.a.m, in boxer shorts, for 25 bucks. The real world is not so kind. So we enjoy the bounties of the night as long as we can, before we are forced into submitting to the tyranny of the day.
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