Want a goodnight’s… ? Dream on

Travel is no longer a simple holiday; ‘niche’ has become the new normal. The latest is a getaway for those who can’t get any sleep. It’s a variation on the lazy ‘staycation’. In that you stayed in your own city but slept in another (expensively booked) bed; in a ‘sleepcation’ you get out of your city, but pretend you are in your own (much comfier) bed. You pack only a pair of PJs, check in, and are shown into a soundproof, lightproof room. The ‘mini-bar’ presumably stocks an array of lullabies. Not your nani/nanny’s ‘Ninni, baba, ninni, / Makkhan roti chini’ , but a soothing soiree to butter your circadian rhythm and sweeten your dreams. ‘Rock-a-bye baby’ will be replaced by one in which, instead of ‘when the wind blows’, there’ll be gentle whooshing sounds to make you fall asleep, not make cradles fall.

Actually, deep sleep is promised even by wide-awake business hotels. The leatherbound folder for ‘In-Room Dining’ competes with an as-lavish ‘Pillow Menu’. Not just Hard/Soft, but a fully catered service for every imaginable head/neck/spine need. Plus duck and swan down feathers in the correct ratio for softness and structure. Maybe a whole team of orthopoe-docs, tech-bros and couturiers is deployed to design these marvels.

‘Black-out’ was a war-time imperative or a neurological impediment. Now it’s a line of curtains for whom the show never gets over.

The sleep industry both rivals and complements that snake-oil salesman, the ‘wellness’ industry, with as many regimens and unguents. ‘Age-defying’ having long replaced age-deifying, the snooze crews too promise skin as unwrinkled as a virgin bed. The other failsafe lure of ‘gut-health’ is both essential ingredient and by-product of an undisturbed night.

But here’s the thing. The bedsheet-long advisory for falling asleep could make you lie awake with anxiety over not having followed its conditions – blue light/ white light; screen-time/ sex-time; back/ tummy/foetal position, etc etc.

Moreover, all these aids, pills and pillows promise to make you ‘sleep like a baby’, but whoever thought up that line was never a bleary-eyed new mom.

Alec Smart said: “Now hope blame will be piloted to correct landing.”

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