Early to rise?

(Just to keep you guys posted, my book's review was carried in Business Standard here

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/a-dog-eat-dog-food-world-satire-on-businesses-rivalry-book-review-116031800386_1.html

If you read it and are overcome by a passion to buy the book, you can always click on the image to the right and go to the book-links :) )

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"

When I first heard of this, I was ecstatic. I surely wanted to be healthy and wealthy. (I was not too sure about whether 'wise' was something THAT desirable, being but a kid then, but if it came enclosed with the other two, I could make do with it as well.) AND all I had to do to be all that was only to sleep early and get up early? THAT sounded like a plan...and a damn good one, well within my capabilities, or so I thought.

Early to bed was a cake-walk. Considering that, by all reports, I was the sort of baby who, after the customary wail to warn the world that it would have to put up with me going forth, had been totally inactive, not even bothering to scream to let my mom know that I was hungry, and considering that growing up had not changed, by one iota, my immense ability to lie supine, this was about the easiest thing imaginable for me. (Did you read THAT sentence in one go? YOU can never be as consummate an idler as I am!)

The problem was with this 'early to rise'. Opinions seemed to vary rather widely about what constituted 'early'. Since the school bus was at 9 AM, half-past eight seemed to be early enough for me. This eminently reasonable proposition found stout opposition within the family. They, apparently, thought that somewhere close to half past five in the morning would fit the requirements, though they would allow me to make do with half past six. Eeeks! Having only had hearsay evidence that such a time of the day existed and having none of that exploratory spirit which seeks to confirm such hearsay evidence by personal experience, I balked.

Collecting empirical evidence from elsewhere did not help. The kids of my age were all in favor of my interpretation of 'early' - with a couple even deriding me for fixing it as early as 8.30 AM and scoffing at the idea that it was necessary to board the school bus or even go to school - but the adults were all uniformly in favor of my parents' interpretation. There was that nightmarish man, too, who spoke of dark and spooky things like the existence of 4 AM in the morning. God!

I presented my evidence to my parents. This definition of 'early' is just a generation gap thing, I argued, and, for my generation, 8.30 AM was early enough to be going on with. To which my mom said, in a clinching argument, that the saying was said by an adult and, thus, it is the adult interpretation which would hold true.

You know what - I decided that I was just a kid and it was too early for me to be seeking health and wealth! Time enough to wake up early when I was an adult and more desirous of such things.

The problem, though, was that the time never came for me. You know how it goes - for anything like that tomorrow seems to be a better day to start doing it than today and when tomorrow turns to today, well, obviously, tomorrow still seems a more attractive day.

And, now, I am afraid that I lose even the half-chance of becoming healthy, wealthy and wise. For now...I seem to have even lost the ability to be 'early to bed'!