Sounds of Bapu-Nagar
I'm sitting in my big, brown chair, trying to read a few chapters on education in India, but the only thing I can do is listen. It's not an agreeable sort of "tuning in" like the dulcet chirping of birds or the soothing ripple of wind through the tall, oak trees. Nope, it's a puncture--visceral, grating, teeth-clenching, hair-raising sort of turbulence. For all my pondering, I've have landed on the conclusion that this is a marching band, striking up it's drum line at 7:30 am. The pounding hands strike one beat off from where I predict it should fall; the noise perforates the air and oscillates between the surrounding buildings, then intrudes my thinly plastered walls, slices through the curtains and probes into my left ear right to the prefrontal cortex--where social behavior is moderated. Mine is possibly damaged now due to an overload of sensation so forgive me if I behave badly, I have a good excuse.
I switch from reading to writing and almost immediately what sounds like an Indian bagpipe pierces the air with a screech like a drowning hyena. I press all of the keys on my computer in a huff. I do this when I'm unhappy with my writing--the "b" gets a lot of action, but today it's the "d" for "dddddddddddddddddddddddddddamn it!" I'm in full-blown, tantrum mode. Then, it's silent. Well, not completely silent because I can still hear whirring cars, honking rickshaws, and cackling monkeys in the background. These are mildly natural sounds to me. The moment's respite is quickly expunged as a car alarm bleeps raucously, akin to a tornado siren blaring through a city. I press down the "s" and "h" simultaneously on my keyboard this time. The drums and Indian bagpipe start up again. The sounds seem more uproarious, and dare I say, willfully pitted against me. The construction workers chime in with their table saws and drills; they add to the fray of sounds churning through the neighborhood. My ears are distressed from the 72 hour incursion that started Monday night.
The night before, I laid in bed after reading for a couple of hours, waiting to see if the pandemonium would die down. A parade of elephants came through our neighborhood just before 10:00 pm. People danced boisterously and sung garishly to music bursting from a stereo strapped to a truck bed with lights streaming off into space. Dogs began to howl and yip for hours after the parade left our street. A loud whistle that shrieked like a distressed woman's cry for help, sent a blood-curdling swell through my veins, folding into the drowning parade frenzy and delirious barks.
It was Monday night when that happened and now it's Thursday morning and the band is still playing every morning and afternoon. Illustrating my book has been thrown out the window, researching for my project--yeah right, and don't even mention trying to read for my class. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, so I do some push-ups in hopes that my cerebrum will reset itself and start blocking out sound again. Until then, I guess I'll just dance.
I switch from reading to writing and almost immediately what sounds like an Indian bagpipe pierces the air with a screech like a drowning hyena. I press all of the keys on my computer in a huff. I do this when I'm unhappy with my writing--the "b" gets a lot of action, but today it's the "d" for "dddddddddddddddddddddddddddamn it!" I'm in full-blown, tantrum mode. Then, it's silent. Well, not completely silent because I can still hear whirring cars, honking rickshaws, and cackling monkeys in the background. These are mildly natural sounds to me. The moment's respite is quickly expunged as a car alarm bleeps raucously, akin to a tornado siren blaring through a city. I press down the "s" and "h" simultaneously on my keyboard this time. The drums and Indian bagpipe start up again. The sounds seem more uproarious, and dare I say, willfully pitted against me. The construction workers chime in with their table saws and drills; they add to the fray of sounds churning through the neighborhood. My ears are distressed from the 72 hour incursion that started Monday night.
The night before, I laid in bed after reading for a couple of hours, waiting to see if the pandemonium would die down. A parade of elephants came through our neighborhood just before 10:00 pm. People danced boisterously and sung garishly to music bursting from a stereo strapped to a truck bed with lights streaming off into space. Dogs began to howl and yip for hours after the parade left our street. A loud whistle that shrieked like a distressed woman's cry for help, sent a blood-curdling swell through my veins, folding into the drowning parade frenzy and delirious barks.
It was Monday night when that happened and now it's Thursday morning and the band is still playing every morning and afternoon. Illustrating my book has been thrown out the window, researching for my project--yeah right, and don't even mention trying to read for my class. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, so I do some push-ups in hopes that my cerebrum will reset itself and start blocking out sound again. Until then, I guess I'll just dance.
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