‘To sleep, perchance to dream,’ said the Bard. ‘Ghoomer deshe diner seshe,’ wrote Gurudev. ‘Dying is the same as going to sleep,’ was how Dom Moraes put it. Robert Frost’s ‘miles to go before I sleep’ has inspired generations. Wonder what he would have had to say about Kumbhakarna from the Ramayana, who slept off half the year. Or the koala, which sleeps 20 hours a day. Even the Beatles have sung, articulating the very opposite of what Frost had to say:

When I wake up early in the morning

Lift my head, I’m still yawning

Please, don’t wake me

No, don’t shake me

Leave me where I am

I’m only sleeping

Everybody seems to think I’m lazy

I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy

Please, don’t spoil my day

I’m miles away

And after all I’m only sleeping

Hindi films and songs have also delved into sleep, more specifically sleeplessness, with lovers in particular complaining about lack of sleep when in love. Fans of Hindi films will also recall the unforgettable sequence involving Keshto Mukherjee, Hindi cinema’s go-to boozer in the 1970s, in Bombay to Goa, who spends the whole bus ride sleeping, wakes up only to find a snake staring him in the face, and promptly goes back to sleep after giving us a priceless expression.

So, next time anyone worries about love-induced insomnia, instead of counting sheep or counting backwards, here’s a playlist to help you stay awake through the night or, maybe, fall asleep.

‘Neend na mujhko aaye’, Post Box 999 (1958)

Sunil Dutt and Shakila toss and turn in their respective beds in adjoining rooms, lamenting the lack of sleep in the first flush of love – ‘chupke chupke koi aake soya pyar jagaye… main jagun yaha tu jage wahan dil mein dard dabaye’. Over 60 years later, Hemant Kumar’s initial refrain, an elongated ‘O…’, much mimicked, is enough to remind listeners of the song. P.L. Santoshi’s words and Kalyanji-Anandji’s composition have stood the test of time and perfectly convey a lover’s predicament.

‘Nanhi kali sone chali’, Sujata (1959)

The lullaby has been a popular genre of Hindi film songs. From K.L. Saigal’s sonorous ‘So ja rajkumari’ (Zindgai, 1940) to ‘Dheere se aaja ri’ (Albela, 1951) to the hushed beauty of Lata Mangeshkar’s rendition of ‘Halke halke aaye chalke’ (Apne Paraye, 1980), the ‘lori’ has had a storied presence in Hindi cinema for decades, before falling out of favour in the last couple of decades.

Though, strictly speaking, the lullaby falls outside the ambit of this feature on sleep and sleeplessness, one cannot but not mention this classic composed by SD Burman (listen to how fleeting the musical accompaniments are, and that flute, and how they serve the cause of the ‘lori’), written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. For my money, this is the best lullaby ever in Hindi films, made so by Geeta Dutt’s wistful rendition that brings to mind all that motherhood has been in our popular imagination. What adds to the song is that heart-rending cry of the ‘other’ baby that punctuates it, underlining the film’s theme.

‘Tumhe yaad karte karte’, Amrapali (1966)

One of Hindi cinema’s most sensual songs, with Lata Mangeshkar’s voice evoking the physical longing that permeates Shailendra’s lyrics: ‘Birha ki iss agan se tumhi mujhe nikalo / Gar tum na aa sako toh, mujhe swapna mein bula lo.’ Shankar-Jaikishen’s melody, arguably one of their finest compositions, will blow your mind, as will Bhanu Athaiya’s costumes that Vyjayanthimala carries so sensuously and tastefully (they came to be known as Amrapali blouses). The sheer eroticism of Vyjayanthimala’s presence, classy and evocative, renders the song pitch-perfect when it comes to conveying insomnia arising out of Cupid’s follies.

‘Neend ud jaaye teri’, Juaari (1968)

A rare song in Hindi cinema that has three heroines — Suman Kalyanpur, Mubarak Begam and Krishna Bose — lip-syncing to three different voices — Naaz, Nanda and Tanuja — each condemning the hero, Shashi Kapoor, to sleepless nights, which is understandable if he is playing the field with three women. However, there are three different aspects to Anand Bakshi’s lyrics in the three stanzas of the song that makes this intriguing. Kalyanji-Anandji’s composition, with each stanza a different tune, adds much to the song’s quality.

‘Karvatein badalte rahein’, Aap Ki Kasam (1974)

Anand Bakshi and RD Burman created magic with this splendid Lata Mangeshkar-Kishore Kumar duet that conveys love and longing and the agony of sleepless nights spent away from the beloved. There are few parallels to Lata’s voice as she sings the first stanza, and of course Anand Bakshi’s words here are an unforgettably sensuous ode to separation: ‘Yaad tum aate rahein ek huk si uthti rahi / Neend mujhse, neend se main bhaagati chhupti rahi / Raat bhar bairan nigodi chandni chubhti rahi / Aag si jalti rahi girti rahi shabnam…’ With words such as these, who wants to sleep anyway?

‘Jaane kya sochkar’, Kinara (1977)

Has anyone experienced spending a night all alone where every moment weighs heavy and time seems to stand still? Gulzar’s words sum up perfectly the sense of just such a night: ‘Ek ghadi raat bhar nahin guzra’. Trust this poet-lyricist to give a moment the agency to think and stop in its tracks, and speak about sleeplessness so elliptically. Probably the finest ode to solitude and the essential loneliness of man — ‘Apni tanhaiyon ka auron se na shikwa karna / tum akele hi nahin ho sabhi akele hain’ — the song benefits immensely from Kishore Kumar’s brilliant rendition of RD Burman’s haunting melody. The last word in melancholy.

‘Mujhe neend na aaye’, Dil (1990)

For an entire generation falling in love in the 1990s, this was an anthem. Sameer’s youthful lyrics that conjure the absence of sleep and peace, ‘neend’ and ‘chaen’, in the wake of falling in love — ‘koi jaaye zara dhoond ke laaye, na jaane kahan dil kho gaya’ — is just the right foil for Anand-Milind’s peppy and hummable score lip-synced by Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit. Young lovers, turning and tossing all night, losing sleep over, well, love, has not had a better expression than — ‘haalat kya hai kaise tujhe bataun main, karvat badal badal ke raat bitaun main’.

And for those who still find sleep eluding them, I leave you to my own words that emerged from Dom Moraes’s words quoted at the outset: ‘It is dawn, does the morning lie / Let me sleep now, comfort me only when I die.’

(The idea for this article emerged from a fun conversation with Gajra Kottary on sleep, its benefits and pitfalls, and is dedicated to her.

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer.)