The Polar Night Birds

The polar nights come with their own set of problems. Most work comes to a standstill and all are mainly confined indoors. In such a closed community which is similar to a jail, people tend to get on each other’s nerves and many are highly irritable. Homesickness makes its presence felt. Everyone is jobless. So some activities have been devised to keep everyone active and also to utilize their time fruitfully.
4 hours in the morning from 9 to 1 have been allotted for work. The Ramayan serial is on these days in the afternoons for about 1 hour. After the series is over some more serials like Mahabharat and Krishna have been lined up. In the evenings, some games competitions have been lined up. They are mainly indoor games like chess, carom, scrabble, TT etc. some people have come up with ingenious ideas like push ups competition, arm wrestling, skipping, abdominals etc. Gym timings are over booked. Yoga is going houseful. Some educational programs have also been started- like computer classes, spoken English, and typing. So everyone is busy with something or the other and no one has time to waste. A lot of parties have been planned on the slightest of pretext. The Russians are coming over on the 21st for the mid winter day (night) celebrations and we will be going over to Novo on the 22nd for the same. After that the countdown to the end of the polar nights will begin. So for the moment, Maitri is bustling with activity and all is fine with the world. Its peace and quiet all around, while the rest of Antarctica hibernates