This chapter opens with an old folk verse — a mother bird waking her sleeping companion, warning that this one life, once spent, will not come around again. It is a call against sleeping through one's own days.
Inside two short lines lies a warning meant for an entire human life.
Here, “sleep” is not only the sleep of the eyes. This sleep stands for laziness, indifference, and the careless squandering of time.
People tell themselves — let it go today, I'll start tomorrow.
But life does not always wait for that tomorrow.
Ayan was in the eighth grade back then.
He wasn't a bad student. His teachers were hopeful about him. He liked mathematics, and science books interested him too. But there was one problem — he never wanted to do anything on time.
Homework? “I'll do it later.”
Exam preparation? “There are still a few days left.”
School in the morning? “Just five more minutes.”
That day was no exception.
The clock read six in the morning.
The alarm's sharp ring woke Ayan up. He picked up the phone lying beside his bed and switched it off.
His eyes were still heavy.
He thought, “Just five more minutes…”
Outside, the morning light was slowly growing.
Five minutes became ten. Ten became twenty. Ayan noticed none of it.
Suddenly his mother's voice — “Ayan! Get up! It's half past seven!”
Ayan jolted upright.
He looked at the clock, and his eyes went wide. 7:30!
Morning assembly at school began at eight. That left him only thirty minutes.
After that there was no time to think. Searching for a shirt while stepping into the bathroom, hunting for shoelaces while brushing his teeth, a bag in one hand and a comb in the other —
His mother called from the kitchen, “Will you have some tea?”
“No time!”
“Eat something before you go.”
“Not today!”
Ayan rushed out the door and jumped onto his bicycle.
The bicycle sped down the road. It felt as if the hands of the clock were racing right alongside him.
The school wasn't far now. But the moment he reached the gate, he saw — the assembly bell had already rung.
His friends were already standing on the field. Ayan parked his bicycle and walked toward them, panting.
His friend Rahul grinned and said, “Late again?”
Ayan said nothing. He only glanced once at the clock.
It occurred to him that if he had only woken up half an hour earlier, he wouldn't have had to run like this at all.
But that moment of regret didn't last very long.
Classes began. Lessons went on. Then the tiffin break. Then the day ended.
Back home, Ayan set his bag aside and picked up his phone.
His mother said, “Sit down and study first.”
Ayan said, “Sure, in a little while.”
His mother said nothing more.
That day, Ayan had no idea that the same “just five more minutes” that had sent him racing to school that morning, and the afternoon's “in a little while,” would one day become the reason for a much bigger race in his life.
And time? It simply moved forward on its own terms. Without waiting for Ayan.