Dear Diary,
I pour over my physics textbook in misery. Oh! Why wasn't I born with a silver spoon? Why did I have to study and work to make a living? Is there no other easy way to assimilate the contents of this mammoth textbook? It is grotesquely obese. Needs a crash diet desperately. As I labour through the taxing words, an intense yawn makes its way into my mouth from the very depths of my being. I open my mouth gaping wide and close my eyes to savour every moment of it. I am in a mini trance when I suddenly hear a loud dhak noise .
It takes me less than a second to realize that the noise is nothing but a resounding whack that my grandma had bestowed on my unassuming backside. The despotic schoolteacher in her, could tolerate any crime, but not yawning while studying. She flings my textbook to the far end of the hall while launching into a tirade that, had I been really concentrating, I would not have yawned blah blah. I put my head down in shame, secrectly hoping that the book should breathe its last as it rotted on the other end of the hall.
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Dear Diary,
I write to you as a woman in my thirties who has grown up to believe that yawning is a deadly sin. Today, I am smarter. Whether I am studying or not, I have learnt to expertly stifle yawns whenever grandma is in the vicinity. Yet I watch like an eagle for the moment when my little daughter would yawn so I can practice the family art of whacking.
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Dear Diary,
Eurekaaaaaaaaaaa! I am overjoyed to read in the papers about an eye-opening piece of research by the University of Leeds. The findings of this research absolve me of my accumulated guilt. The research has found that yawning could be contagious, especially among people with a heightened sense of the mind and its functions. These people are typically empathetic and more aware of other people's feelings. An experiment has also proved that psychology students tended to yawn more than engineering students and by corollary autistic children would yawn lesser than normal children.
There it is. The writing on the wall. I knew I am not so terrible after all. Even though it took a decade and a half and the whole of University of Leeds to say some nice things about me and redeem me from years of guilty yawning, my ecstasy knows no bounds. This news gives me tremendous relief.
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Dear Diray
Soon after I read the news, I clutched the paper tightly and rushed to enlighten my grandma. I explained to her that her yawny granddaughter was not the engineering type after all. In fact she had a highly developed sense of empathy with her people and the Universe. So she wasn't all that dull headed and disinterested in studies as grandma had thought.
As I said this, a strange tremor swept through my body. I started shivering and my breathing became heavy turning into gasps. I was worried at first, but soon comprehended what was happening. I stood tall and proud, squared my shoulders and faced Grandma, "The moment has come Paatty”, I said. “Forgive me, but I have to do this".
With that, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, thought of my fat physics book and finally --like a baby born after arduous labour -- delivered the loudest and longest yawn ever registered in the history of mankind.
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Dear Diary,
You won’t be surprised to know that my yawn made it to the Guinness Book of World records. Obviously, I have dedicated the award to the one and only one who made it all possible –my dear sweet Grandma!!
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