I often reminisce about the good old days when people would enjoy a good night’s sleep. Interestingly, people in other countries look towards the future for a better and more facilitated life while we look back to fondly remember the better days. As a matter of fact, pessimism and cynicism are the two natural responses to the way things are unfolding here. We rarely hear people say ‘I slept like a log’. All that we hear is how they stayed up during the night or how they got up many times to switch on and off their power generators. People no longer look forward to the onset of night to rest their weary limbs and reinvigorate themselves for the following working day. Nights are no longer welcomed.

Good sleep is a prerequisite for a productive day. Much of the petulance, aggression, amnesia, insomnia and lethargy stems from the rough nights which the poor people spend. They leave for work with a great deal of listlessness and restlessness. Their working and earning capacities have suffered a lot. Loadshedding is taking a very heavy toll on the underprivileged. A detailed and exhaustive psychological survey is necessary to ascertain how many serious psychological ailments are caused by the long hours of unscheduled excruciating loadshedding. A psychologically unhealthy manpower cannot contribute anything valuable to the development of a country.
Rashid Khan,
Mardan, July 30.