The Goa Forward Party has declared a promise ahead of the 2022 elections-if its president Vijay Sardesai is made Chief Minister, they will introduce a compulsory siesta hour
Illustration/Uday Mohite
The Goa Forward Party has declared a promise ahead of the 2022 elections-if its president Vijay Sardesai is made Chief Minister, they will introduce a compulsory siesta hour. While enumerating the benefits of an afternoon nap-clinically proven to improve alertness, memory, mood and energy-the raison d’etre for the proposition was less utilitarian, more philosophical. "Instead of being part of the rat race, Goans like to take it easy, which should not be mistaken for laziness. It (sussegad) is the culture of Goa. Everyone needs to learn from this and respect it." High five! I say.
Andrew Marvell was talking to his coy mistress about sleeping together when he wrote "let us roll all our strength and all/our sweetness up into one ball", but it could also be the day talking to the night about sleep. The afternoon nap is the pithy, witty poem of sleep, the stolen quickie of rest, the daulat ki chaat of repose. It is the condensed version of night, tucked into the middle of the day, like elaichis are tucked into a gulab jamun’s heart, like mince is packed into a potato cutlet’s tummy, like the liquified centre of a hard éclair toffee. Every day may not be a Sunday, but with an afternoon nap, every day can have a little piece of Sunday.
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As a child, I hated afternoon naps and suffered frequent scolding for disrupting the naps of grown-ups. But, soon I found an Enid Blytonesque sense of adventure in the unexpected secrecy of being awake when everyone else lay deep in the cushion of heat and somnolence. Disrupting the dominant adult regime, it became a time to read forbidden books and investigate ignored cupboard shelves. As an adult, I have frequently taken afternoon naps at my office desk, dense with dream, like dark chocolate, waking to the fizz of refreshment like prosecco bubbles in my nose. In lockdown, naps are part of my routine and I have been happier, healthier and more awake to life for it. The suggestion of 3 pm meetings scandalises me. Why so rest-less, dost?
Siesta is a pan-Indian practice, not a Goan invention. But it’s also an increasingly stigmatised one, seen as some kind of infra-dig desi habit, like pickle and paratha for tiffin, like saying Hawai chappal (present Miss) instead of flip flops-yaniki some folx only praise dopahar ki neend if Spanish people do it.
Productivity is the chief religion of our times, which requires conformity to propagate itself efficiently-ownership of our time and minds by work in ways that denies human needs; ownership of our politics by the binaries of liberal and bhakt. We need things that restore us to ourselves.
The GFP started with a declared wish to fight the BJP and ended up allying with them. Make of that what we will, but a local party staking claims to the CM’s seat in a state besieged by infrastructure projects with "You do not have to overload a small place with too much infrastructure" is an intriguing disruption, an idea of federalism that also runs, differently, through the farmers’ protests. Perhaps federalism is the afternoon nap of politics. Perhaps all disruptive models are not "move fast, break things". Some are "take it slow, mending things" letting sleep knit up the ravelled sleeve of care. Perhaps federalism is the afternoon nap of politics.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com
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