I used to make fun of my boss and old teacher who would tell me how he woke at 4.00 am and commenced his day with some deep study. Young as i was, i mocked his insomnia and even suggested that he probably begins to plot against his many minions in those wee hours to gain a ‘Competitive Advantage’. Nothing brought me as much amusement as the anecdote that this gentleman who graduated from Harvard once received a call at about 2.00 am claiming that the caller was Prof Michael Porter from HBS wanting to discuss Industry Structure. Obviously the prankster was some student much inebriated and vexed by his assignments or studies at the cheap bar called Raj Palace just outside the college. Given that sometimes i was found there too, i was viewed with as much suspicion. As i myself age and take refuge in the same strange and ineffable silence that pervades the early morning hours between 3.00 and 4.30 am, I feel guilty at my childish jokes of youth gone by. But the sounds of the summer silence are soon broken by cuckoo calls to mate before the crows unravel their devious designs to mix their eggs with those of crows. I might even chuckle; no wonder cuckoos lend their name to adultery and are not the only ones horny so early in the day. As i sit in the silence i fathom the stirrings and the sounds, which by 5.oo am is a grating ringtone of the gardener trying to wake up and start his day or that of some rickshaw driver asleep with a hangover after drinking a quarter of whiskey whose evidence is just beside his vehicle. Soon the ragpickers would arrive with large Santa Claus plastic sacks, some Tamil speaking women who move furtively scouring the edges of the road picking up bottles and sometimes booty that conferred oblivion to some after a tiring day or quench the thirst of many a scorched soul through the day in plastic bottles. They speak in hushed voices though their harsh tongue betrays them sooner than their feet. Their feet don’t shuffle but move fast and with agility that only calculation and illegality can confer.
