Strains of Silence!

I woke up this morning at around 7.30AM – there was something disturbing (for the lack of better word) that my morning sub-n-half-conscious-mind was not used to – I guess, that woke me up. I heard a myriad of voices - fortunately, those weren't in my head :) ; they were various calls of variety of birds. As I lay listening to those, those that seemed to morph into a rhythmic symphony, I could pick out the streak of various birds calling out. There was this long and plaintive call of the mynah; the hoarse caw of the crow – some unidentifiable voices of the birds – it would have been the perfect setting for an ornithologist. The best was yet to come; I walked out to the balcony and the air was s-t-i-l-l and fresh. There was this indescribable crispness to it – a cool whiff that touches you softly and washes over you. In the cusp of summer, the morning sun was gentle and trying to break through a light fog.

I stood enjoying, this musical in such a wonderful setting; then as wakefulness set in, it dawned on me. The usual cacophonies were conspicuous by their absence – no acrid smell of the exhaust smoke, no horns blaring, no sound of a macho-biker revving up, no bedlam of huge buses, and most importantly, no jangling of the nerves. The strains of the perfect morning had taken away any signs of stress.

As I enjoyed the moment, I realized this was how the world was before the industrialization took over; perhaps this was how my forefathers woke-up every morning in their villages when they took off to till the lands. It occurs to me now, that it is really not a very bad idea for us to have bandh, at least once a month, that closes down our city and opens up the world, instead.