Beyond the Sigh

What do you complain about the most?

The area where my house is situated is moderately populated but it is still a lot more than what it used to be around twenty years ago and I did not expect that the road in front of my house would become one of the main roads in the area.



When my family came here, I was ten years old. To be honest I did not like this place at all. In comparison to the well-developed society apartments, we used to live in previously, this place had a distinct feeling of emptiness. There were a very few buildings around and very few people who could be seen.



There was a long list of problems with the primary being the frequent long electricity cuts. There were very few kids in the neighbourhood and they were a bit different from the ones I had seen till now. How should I put, a bit rough around the edges.



What I did love was my school, it was in an area which was much more developed in comparison to the one we had shifted in and the kids there were like the ones with whom I had been friends in my previous school. 



The silence of the area was initially very disturbing. It was so empty that my pet German Shepherd back then didn’t require morning or evening walks. We would simply just let him out and he would do what he needed to and be back.



As time went on, I started growing accustomed to this silence, it started to become more comforting as I got busier with my hobbies. The internet was expensive with limited data packs, there were no OTT platforms, the cable network here was average and this was good, why? Because it gave me all the time in the world to read books and I read a lot of them, day and night, even in my sleep I was dreaming about them. It was certainly one of the most bizarrely unique times of my life.



The complaint I have in the present phase of my life is the lack of that silence that I had grown accustomed to over the years. The moments of peace are becoming fewer by numbers but that is part of life as you grow up.



The road in front of my house which I used to think could become a good place for a scene in a haunted movie is now almost always busy. If I go out and stand on my balcony right now, I am sure at least one person who is a stranger will look at me for no particular reason at any given moment.



There are all forms of noises around now, from vehicles to people, even the number of dogs on the street have drastically increased. This is my complaint because I write and always having the wireless earbuds in my ears is not a pleasant feeling.



However, I may have come across a solution which I wasn’t quite aware of. It happens in moments, but there are times when the noise doesn’t stop existing but I mentally stop existing in it, diving deep into the world of the words I write.



Written by Anuran Chatterji

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