The Sound of Silence

Today was the first day of curfew in the city. I woke up today morning without the usual alarm bringing me back to life. When I woke up, which is quite early in the morning, I noticed the difference immediately. It was silent, way more silent than it usually is on mornings. Human activity had subsided and the silence spoke. I was reminded of an article I wrote a few years back about silence. That day, silence shook me to my core and sprung about the initiation of a transformation within me; a transformative journey to turn inward. I think about 4 years have passed since then, and when I look back, I am grateful for that morning of silence.

Today’s silence was of a different quality; it was soothing and felt complete. I had no need to pick up my phone and check for messages or news or emails. I had no need to turn away from the silence and listen to music or any form of sound. I looked within, and I knew. I knew that I had taken a few steps inward and that it had made a tremendous difference in the quality of my life, in the quality of how I experienced life. I had no need to chase anything. It is freedom, a freedom that no one granted or no one can take away. The small flame that had been lit on the morning 4 years back, was now a flaming fire. Yet this fire does not destroy. It is the fire that has burned up so many things that were false in me. It is the fire that left the coolness of life within me.

With this hope, that you too may know this fire one day, I reproduce the article that I wrote long back, the one silent morning that lit the flame:

“I woke up today without having the need of an alarm to wake me up. It was quite early in the morning and the sun had just breached the horizon with a haze tinted like orange vapor. The cool air was heavy with the sound of silence, just dotted here and there with the chirping of a morning birds. A slight breeze wafted in through the open window. I sat up, with the blanket wrapped around my feet, drinking in the silence with my eyes half opened. Sounds of soft feet pattering about in the street below came up indicating that the day was just beginning. I wished that this part of the morning would last forever. I sat like that for about 15 minutes without moving, listening to the morning sounds. It seemed to last but for a brief moment.

I realized then what I had forgotten in my life.

I had forgotten the savory delicateness of a gentle morning, I had forgotten the warmth of a slow unhurried warm breakfast, I had forgotten the deep smell of a book which smelled like acorns and old oak wood, I had let go of words that rhymed and weaved together to create magic in our hearts, I had forgotten long conversations with an old friend, I had let go of relaxed evenings on the balcony with my family, I had left behind meaningful conversations over some delicious evening snacks, I had let go of watching the sun set beyond the farthest land imaginable, I had let go of wondering about the mysteries of life, I had forgotten how much I had loved silence.

All that is left now is a whirling tempest of myriad distractions. I am too absorbed with the opinions spouted, with news flashes, with jokes that tickle and bid adieu, with fancy things to own, with money to earn, and the whirlpool never ends. Sucked in from one end, it doesn’t seem to have another end. Moving from one thing to another, from cricket to demonitisation to national anthem to elections to war to some other thing. Ever moving, and ever consuming, to keep you completely occupied and distracted at the same time.

I look around and I look at myself and I see a terrifying future awaiting us. Books are dead, literature is passé, art is only abstract, instant gratification rules, videos are shorter, jokes are shorter, social media has turned into a scary form of addiction, conversations are shallow, intoxication seems to be the only way to be free, dissatisfied corporate employees and so on and so forth and the world seems to be running at top speed to some unknown end.

Where will it end, you ask? Funny, we haven’t even figured out where it all begins. There is no end and there is no beginning to the chaos of the external world. The world is the way it is, madness and anarchy all at once. Then maybe it seems, the only way that makes sense anymore is to turn inward.

And that is what I miss. That I started out to be aligned inward, but somehow lost the plot along the way and I turned into the guy who knew ‘what was happening with the world’. To know, became such a madness, such a disease, that I gave a huge part of my life to it. I would read news articles feverishly, I would have plethora of information about every damn thing, I learned and read more than I ever could before. Dutifully read every damn opinion on every damn thing. But then, one day I stopped.

Oh, to realize that the ‘knowing’ never stops! It is such a painful process. To untangle from the mess of knowledge. I wish I could somehow explain what I mean and what I felt when I realized this. Maybe in the next post. But, it shocks you to know, that you really knew nothing. That all the while, you went on acquiring something that was pretty useless. Maybe, the process led me here and in some way that knowledge was useful, but the things I learnt and know seem so small and little now. It seems all a huge invisible conspiracy now, led by no one but my own ego.

Today morning and its accomplice, Silence. That, is worth knowing.

It may seem to you, that the more you know, the more you will figure out life and the more you will advance in your life or career or whatever. But I get the feeling nowadays, that this is far from truth. In prose, in rhythm, in birds chirping, in the touch of the morning sun and the grace of a beautiful morning, lie more truths than you would ever hope to find in the morning newspaper.

I woke up today without an alarm, but the biggest alarm bell rang out for me. It shook me to my foundations and woke me up from the waking sleep that I was trudging along in. And I wrote this, because I’m sure you would have felt this way somewhere along your life, but maybe you ignored it.

Maybe it is time to revisit that time again. Maybe it’s time to let silence speak again. And, maybe, just maybe, the world would stop complaining and stop being so miserable again.”