The Sounds of Silence

It’s been just two days and two nights since I returned to the US from India – my home. And boy do I already miss home? You bet I do!

Last night and the one before that, I could not sleep…some people called it jet lag. But I had slept like a log during the flight…my dad’s advice…”If, instead of wasting time in the flight watching movies, you sleep, you avoid the jet lag”.

What I missed the most at night was, I realized, the sounds of the dark ‘silence’.

Well, at home I sleep in my grandpa’s room. The night talks to me in its own special way. The sound of my grandpa’s clock ticking away and reminding of the passing night; and assuring that it will be day soon. The old songs that play on the radio on the vividhbharti channel till 11:30 pm and which my grandpa oh so religiously listens to.

The sound of the fan lulls me to sleep – I miss this the most as I have become anaerobic living in the closed air conditioned environment in my apartment in the US; and I do miss the slight squeak of the fan that keeps on reminding us that the poor thing needs to be oiled.

The crickets chatting away nineteen-to-the-dozen all through the night – I wonder what they have to gossip about so much? – are worse than us girls eh?

My dad snoring in the adjacent room is a great feeling of security. He snores like a tiger. And you know what??? when I was a kid I used to actually think that a tiger will hear his roar...er...snore and get scared and run away!!

My brother practicing his guitar, strums at night a lullaby of rock music!! He is picking it up really well. And I am his forever guinea pig.

The night watchman with his stick hitting on the road to keep us as well as himself awake is accompanied by the stray dogs – they are so many of them and they are loyal to our locality. They will not allow any other dog to be a part of this locality.

I never wondered how these little things could touch my life so much!!