Of Senile Generals and Stone Ages

The honourable military dictator of Pakistan claims he has been in the "Line of Fire" all his life. Cheap publicity stunt? Retirement booty collection? Who knows? and yes, when it comes to incredible people like the general, who cares?

The book has shot up to the top 20 on Amazon's bestselling list. Partly on speculation about what the man has claimed in the book and partly on a desire to get a perspective on what self-righteous dictators think about the rest of the world. So what does General Pervez Musharaf do in the book? Well, he does what he does best---lie. That's right. Anybody worth his salt, having read the book would confirm with a squirm on his face that the goddamn book is a pack of lies.

The General has made ludicrous claims that the Kargil infiltration was in response to Indian activity on the border.... that the whole operation was a 'victory for the Pakistani army'. Perhaps the most deliciously inappropriate claim made in the book is that the Americans promised to bomb Pakistan 'back to the stone age'. Well, maybe they did, but I guess, it wouldn't exactly help Mush to antagonize his good friend Dubya at this point in time.

All said and done, more was said than done. The book is probably a flash in the pan that will interest people for a few months because of the General's good PR. But what after that? Well, maybe Mush should answer that.....

Sleep Issues

Whenever I come home from college one thing changes dramatically:my sleep patterns. I start sleeping like I've never slept before. I'm not used to afternoon siestas so my sleep's always concentrated in the nocturnal hours. But then once I hit the bed at night...there's no telling when I'll be up. I just seem to sleep on and on and on....like there's no sunrise or morning or a world outside of my bed.
And yet in college one tends to stay up late--because that's when all the fun is.....watching movies late into the night is a favourite pastime back on campus. I am really unpredictable when it comes to sleep. Friends have caught me sleeping while they're still talking to me...in the middle of a movie....at times when everyone should be up and studying for an exam the next day, I invariably doze off.
The best part is when friends wake me up and talk to me- they borrow stuff from me or come looking for something....and when they ask me the next day I remember nothing of the conversation....almost as if my body was operating on auto-pilot after been shaken out of deep slumber.
Six for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool: they say that's the number of hours of sleep you need depending on what category you belong to. Well I guess, you can only apply that rule to people who follow a definite routine in the first place....not to dimwits like me who do not have a functional biological clock. I can never go to sleep saying for sure when I'll be up. Any number of alarms are just a waste of energy. I simply turn them off and go back to sleep. The interesting part I never remember switching off the alarm! It's only when I test the alarm later to see if it's working that I realize I must have turned it off.
One of the greatest challenges that faces me today is to work out a consistent sleep pattern. To set my biological clock working. It's a daily fight for me. It's tough and leaves me frustrated and disgusted with myself more often than not. It's been so long that I've tried and failed to work out my sleep issues.....