GenX works & plays all night

Late to bed and early to rise is leaving schoolchildren in the city
unhealthy, inattentive and anything but wise.

"Nothing registers in my brain during the first three classes of the
day. I long to get back home and catch up on sleep for at least an
hour," admits Class XII student Taran Veer Singh, who stays awake till
well after midnight and wakes up to the alarm ringing at 6 in the
morning.

Sleep deprivation in children takes its toll in the form of lapses in
concentration, absenteeism in school and health problems ranging from
fatigue and indigestion to migraine and ulcers.

"My son feels lethargic all the time and needs regular medication for
indigestion," says Manmeet Kaur, the mother of a Class XII student who
studies till late every night.

Not every child sacrifices sleep for study, though.

"The nocturnal life of a student from Class VIII upwards is as much
about social networking over the phone or on the Net as about studies.
Those hours of privacy seem to matter to them more than sleep," says a
researcher studying student behaviour.

The parents of a Class VIII student of a reputable south Calcutta
school are spending lakhs to transfer their daughter to a strict
boarding school in Bangalore so that she is cured of her habit of
staying up all night to speak to friends over the phone or chat
online.

Meghna Mukherjee (name changed), a Class IX student, admits to feeling
"drowsy" in class but won't change her habit of staying up late
because that would mean sacrificing her nocturnal networking time.
"Night (call) rates are cheaper," giggles Meghna.

Nupur Ghosh, the mother of a Class X student at St Xavier's Collegiate
School, is worried that her son texts his friends even when he is
studying. "I can't even scold him. Lack of sleep has made him prone to
temper tantrums."

When schools report a drop in academic performance in children, the
culprit often turns out to be sleep deprivation. "I have seen children
dozing off while writing an exam. No matter how good a child is in
studies, performance suffers if he or she doesn't get enough sleep,"
explains Apeejay School principal Rita Chatterjee.

Nandita Pal Choudhury, whose daughters are in classes X and XII at La
Martiniere for Girls, tries to dissuade both from studying late into
the night but they don't listen. "On several occasions, my daughters
have come back from an exam upset that they couldn't recall everything
they had learnt," says Nandita.

Some schools have begun counselling students about the advantages of
following a healthy routine. "We have also been discussing possible
remedial measures at parent-teacher meetings. We suggest that parents
don't allow their children to use cellphones or computers after 11pm,"
says Fr Siby Joseph, the principal of Don Bosco School, Park Circus.

Communication between parents and children is the key to understanding
and solving sleep problems, stresses Malini Bhagat, the principal of
Mahadevi Birla Girls' Higher Secondary School. "Students pass out in
class for lack of sleep. It's that serious."

Doctors recommend eight to nine hours of sleep for children.
"Compromising on sleep leads to inconsistent performance, behavioural
disorders and also delayed response. In the long run, the heart
becomes weak," warns Apurba Ghosh, the director of the Institute of
Child Health.

Like One Of Us. Or Like None Other ?

Chetan Bhagat is like one of us. He completed his engineering from IIT
Delhi and MBA from IIM – A and then worked in Deutsche Bank for eleven
years before delving into writing (Now there are so many of us who
maybe having the same educational qualifications as well as dreams of
working in the top banks and other companies of the world). But
somewhere down the line he realised that this was not giving him the
creative satisfaction he so badly wanted and becoming more of a dull
and dreary job.

His first book "Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT" was
rejected by nine publishers. As he once said at an orientation program
for MBA students at Symbiosis, Pune, this incident made him so
disappointed that he was ready to quit once and for all. But he
refused to buckle down. This simple story of three friends – Hari,
Ryan and Alok and their years in IIT Delhi and how they cope with the
pressures of studies, family pressure and love and friendship made the
nation read like never before (Probably at par with the Harry Potter
series). It catapulted him to instant stardom. This book was followed
by One Night @ the Call Center, Three Mistakes of my Life and 2 States
– The Story of my marriage.

The best thing about his books is the fact that all his characters are
ones which today's generation can associate with – whether its Hari in
Five point someone, Vroom in One night at the Call center or Krish and
Ananya in 2 States – The story of my marriage. Critics have always
lambasted him for "n" number of reasons like having no literary value
in his works, his characters being one dimensional and similar in all
his books as well as ridiculous things like encouraging sex before
marriage. CRITICS BE DAMNED!!!!. Personally I think all these critics
like crap stuff which the general public normally hates. They pass
such comments because none of them have it in them to even write few
lines of a novel.

Bhagat has never advocated the fact that he meant to be a literary
genius. His main aim was, has and I am sure will always be to
entertain all audiences alike. I feel that his greatest success lies
in the simplicity of all his characters though I think "Three Mistakes
of My Life" was much more serious than any of his works which is why
he recently said that after this book he was feeling very heavy and
wanted to get back to something "light-hearted" as that has always
been his forte. As far as promoting sex in his books is concerned, one
thing I would like to point out to the critics is that today's
generations isn't that dumb. They are exposed to Television, print
media (Newspapers, magazines etc) as well as Internet which are much
bigger promoters of sex and nudity than a plain simple novel. Don't
the novels of Sidney Sheldon, Nicholas Sparks and who all have a bit
of sex in them? This is what we call hypocrisy wherein such self –
proclaimed moralists of our country would be watching porn, nudity and
sex but would surely comment on others because they can't bear to see
their success.

Bhagat has become much more than a writer today. He's evolved into a
youth icon having been conferred the Society Young Achiever's Award –
2004 as well as the Publisher's Recognition Award 2005 and also been
called to present speeches at the HT Leadership Summit as well as
Symbiosis, Pune. His articles on politics, economics, social and a
host of other issues in Dainik Bhaskar, Times of India and Hindustan
Times which have created a flutter even in the Parliament also have a
dedicated base of followers.

I would like to end by quoting few lines from his speech at the HT
Leadership Summit in 2008

"I am no leader. At best, I am a dreamer with perseverance to make
dreams come true. As I have made my own dreams come true already, I am
tempted to think we can make my country's dreams come true. And that
is why I am here."

So guys what are you waiting for?? Chetan Bhagat has shown us that all
of us are capable of achieving what he has achieved. All we need is
the perseverance to make our dreams come true!!!