Skip to main content

In an Introvert's World #2 An Affair with Silence

There are several rooms. Some are gilded with the stars from the East and the North, where on the roof, they twinkle and revolve around their planets. Exquisite! They breathe as they dim and shine. Here they go around Jupiter and then around Ganymede. He enters this room, totally unknown and bothering no one, switches on the lighting and sits down on his bench. No one knows where he is. He doesn’t want them to know either.
In another room, there is Silence sitting on his piano, pushing his fingers against the slender keys. White. Black. Black. White. Two at a time. Three at a time. His fingers dance and produce the finest of the music – the screeches of the worst type, the tins, the dins and the screams that make Silence what it is. Silence doesn’t like visitors. They don’t like listening to Silence's music. They interrupt Silence repeatedly. They speak of their own rooms and what they do in there. They speak of all types of non-sense. Things which despite having a meaning, are hollow. Words need to be read. Music needs to be heard. But why should such words be spoken? Silence hits on to his notes.
Silence loves silent visitors. Thus, Silent shifts room. Silence moves in with him the moment he lays his bench. Thus, he and Silence, they make their own huge village in that small room. It spans across the bench. There are papers. There are pens. There is only the sound of his breath rhyming with Silence’s music. Every moment or so, there are screeches of a pen as ink is spilt on paper. The stars dance to his rhythm. Around Jupiter. Around Ganymede. Around the tiny little asteroid lurking behind the shadow of Ganymede. Their lights zigzag around the floor. The atmosphere is enhanced. The room is congested. There is no room for anyone. He likes it there. Silence likes it there. Everyone is happy.

Behind the glass door, Noise lurks tirelessly.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Experience with UPSC + "Strategy": Part I

So, I have been ranked 507 at an all-India level in the prestigious UPSC Civil Services Examination of the year 2020. I was 23 when I filled the form and this was my second attempt. I registered under the EWS category. There are 506 individuals ahead of me and over 200 behind me. There are countless others who were not selected. I have met many of them and even talked to a few. One thing that I have always noted is the very feeble difference among them. Every one of them deserves to be in the service, and many of them really are, I believe, unofficially in the service of the nation. Yet, a lot many are not selected. Others have not been judged the way I would have judged them! With all due respect, luck has played a huge role in my selection. (My selection is yet not final. Due to some problem of certification, my candidature remains provisional at this point of time. If not resolved, I will not be recommended by the Commission.) Now, talking about the things that were in my contro...

This City Called Imphal

                It’s been such a long time since I last typed. It is as if the comfort of the room is not enough to write here – it requires the winter to invade my skin, the midnight gibbous moon to show me the words – for me to hit the keyboard with eyes closed, like a pianist’s fingers dancing. Anyway, there cannot be a better time to reflect than the New Year’s Day. Life has been such that every post on the blog has a feel of “everything has changed so much”. This post comes at a time of another big shift – I have moved to Imphal for my district training. This is the first touch with the field and the first instance of application of theory. It has been almost three weeks and the name “Imphal” has slowly started to sound familiar. This post is only about the first few meters in this miles-long journey. A Change of Home Moving to a new place can never be a good experience. Here is something that I wrote during one of the boring lectures r...

How's It Goin?

          The life under training leaves little time to sit back and think, lest write about it. You end your day in your bed with a pillow against the wall, light a tiny flame on a candle and let the static of the room invade you. More often than not, there is soft music playing on the Alexa. Books are staring like skulls on the shelf. The nine brief months have left the room strangely foreign – a temporary space between the four walls – you spent too little time there to make it your own but it is the centre of your existence. The need for introspection often overtakes you but you feel it only in the form of exasperation and an evening of depression. You sigh audibly and some of that which is clogging your nerves washes away. Some good things shine. Running calms you. You often try to find someone to go on a run with but you mostly run alone. There is nothing new to that. But you are running more now, and faster. It is one of the things the Academy has done ...