India, June 10 -- The Lighter Side

By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

There is something deeply unfair about the universe and I have spent considerable time - mostly between two and four in the morning - thinking about it.

The young, bless their well-rested hearts, cannot wake up. The old, curse their hyperactive nervous systems, cannot sleep. Somewhere in this arrangement there is a divine joke and I suspect the joke is entirely on me.

Let me explain the situation as I understand it.

My younger friends and colleagues live in a state of perpetual warfare with their alarm clocks. The battlefield is the bedroom at six in the morning, the combatants are a sleepy human being and a smartphone set to the most aggressively cheerful ringtone known to...