Creature of Habit

Sir Winston Churchill

Have you ever realised how much of a creature of habit you are? Small things matter in life so intensely that if any one of your articles of daily use should be misplaced, you will be first upset. And, should it not be retrieved quickly enough you lose temper without throwing anybody on the mat instantly. That is because you wouldn't know who played the trick until your housemaid pointed a finger to the private security man who would have doubled as a 'meticulous interior decorator' on a weekend. With his peculiar aesthetic sense and a sleight of hand he would rearrange the things upsetting your private corner. For he too is a creature of habit, a non-respecter of another creature of habit what if the latter is his paymaster!

You keep glasses for near or compound vision in duplicate or triplicates at home and even another set at place of work just in case a pair would be missing or left in your vehicle.

You have a personal corner at home and you would like it to be dusted and cleaned every other day to be in a comfort zone after you return from work. One's own bed must be the most favourite space for rest at night. No bed at a five-star hotel room or that in a luxury house of a host can be comparable to your own sleeping mattress customized for your body comfort, neither fluffy nor hard.

Napoleon at the Battle of Rivoli, by Philippoteaux.

Napoleon Bonaparte who was known for stealing a sleep on horse-mount in a war field once said that who and what he loved most were his bed and his spouse Joséphine.

The reader may be a little amused at the analogy being drawn between a modest person's love for his bed and that of a great man. But no, there is some relevance when you think of the way you are waging a battle with life everyday in a city that is becoming notoriously unlivable by the day. After six hours of being on the road, that too mostly in virtual comatose with uneven blood circulation, when you land at home you may be relatively relieved but surely tired. You crave for entertainment through television watching, tiring your eyes out. All you crave for is to hit the bed and rise next morning refreshed and recharged. You thank your stars if you didn't have to catch up with lost sleep.

One is even reminded of Winston Churchill's famous words of valour when he said in the thick of German aerial bombardment of London, "I simply pull the blanket over my body and slip into the depth of drowning worries." Not perhaps exactly the words that Churchill used but conveys the sense, I dare presume, all the same.

How much of a creature of habit one could be was proven by a hero in a Hollywood movie who would be at the bus stand at a fixed time every morning and the towering clock nearby will chime the hour. One day, he appeared at the stand as usual but the clock's dingdong sounded a few minutes later. So unfailingly punctual was the man that he was proved to have been right on time from a reading of another dependable clock. In fact, the hands of the clock at the city centre didn't move in a right rhythm for a moment or two. And hence the triumph of human habit over machine.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.