As I write

As I write this piece, the din around me is palpable. My teenage son, sitting beside, is glued to the other computer, busy playing an aim-and-shoot game. Typical to his age, he likes cacophony, so the strange western sound from the game notwithstanding, he is also running a series of Hindi film songs aided by Windows media player.

A moment or two’s respite from his computer is overtaken by non-stop drawl floating in from loudspeaker outside that announces showing Bengali movie Hero in the makeshift pandal that is there nearly a week not far from where we live. As if these are not enough, the sudden bursts of pressure-cooker whistling ever so often inform me that our cook is intent on squeezing as much as she can in her brief hour-long routine.

And then there is my mother’s rebuke aimed at our cook’s daughter, whom she tutors, for not preparing her studies. But that’s not all. Occasionally, tootings of passing cars as they press the horns pipe in, as also myriad others, feeble yet easily recognizable.

I’m told great writings emerge when there is a quiet. Although I strongly fall in the category of mediocre writing, I nevertheless feel even good writers will find it tough amid din. The flip side is of course letting kaleidoscope of events passing through the mind as I sit with my eyes closed trying to imagine what all are going on behind those sounds.

And perhaps that translates to a food of thought I can later make use of when it is quiet, when it is finally time to retrospect on my doings in the silence of deep night.