Thursday Tales No. 5: Silence that Remained

In 2020, Mumbai: the city that never sleeps, slumbered like a child. The railway halted, the bustles dissolved, and its "spirit" softened into tranquillity. An unfamiliar silence pervaded every corner and street. And behind every closed door, a different story quietly unfolded.

This is one such story. A fragment of the moments, the memories, and the stillness that lingered among you and me. It is an elegy to all that was, all that could have been, and all that remains.

Silence that Remained

A pin’s fall would have been the loudest sound that day. Rachel took off her headphones, dropped her pen in the space between the pages of her journal and shut it close, she also shushed her ever-talking mind – three things she would not do otherwise. She noiselessly walked towards the only window of her studio apartment, which faced a broad road.

“Ahh what a feel!” she exclaimed.

Stillness, like the one found inside a non-working clock, fell upon that road of Mumbai. Not a dust was stirred up into the air, for there were no passing vehicles nor a walking human. She gazed at the azureness of the sky and clouds’ fluffy smile. To her, the city looked like a baby sleeping after a clamorous cry.

“This is the first time and probably the last time the city will speak to me in this voice,” she whispered as she closed her eyes to take in the calmness. Silence touched her frizzy hair; it filled her abdomen and her already tranquil mind; it entered every cell. This is all that she had wanted for 24 years of her life. Solitary. Silence. But her choice of career had prevented it for such a long time.

She was travelling to the depth of this heaven when a warm, liquid-like rhythm “Dhundhla jaayein jo manzilein Ik pal ko tu nazar jhuka…” cut through the air. Her eyelids cracked open, her cheeks drooped, and her nose and mouth puckered into a “Ptch!” This dancing melody advanced through the open window and invaded her room. It was coming from her next-door neighbours.

For two years, Rachel had shared the same floor with the Murugan family, but her job at the publishing house, and their unobtrusive nature had allowed no eye-to-eye interaction with them. The only two instances she remembered seeing them were when the couple first moved in, somewhere from the South, and when Mr Murugan attended the Annual society meeting. And neither of the occasions, nor her nature and preoccupation, gave her the opportunity to engage with them. So the Murugans were just blurry figures to her.

She had never heard Mrs Murugan sing before, yet she was certain that it was her singing. She wondered why Mrs Murugan never sang before, perhaps she discovered her voice today, or maybe, she had never been home enough to notice the singing. Whatever the reasons were, at such a phenomenal moment, the song was unwelcomed. Rachel admitted to herself that Mrs Murugan’s voice was as smooth as honey, but she had already developed a deep disdain for her noisy neighbour, and she took no moment to reconsider the divinity, the talent, nor the loneliness someone was shunning away by filling it with music.

Rachel told herself that this annoyance would dissolve with the end of the song, and she could return to absorbing the stillness of the world, which it had come to that day. She held patience for Mrs Neighbour to get tired and stop singing, but like a music put on loop, the song kept echoing. At one point, she felt the compulsion to bang on their door, and paste a tape on the singing mouth, but her sanity and the circumstances restrained her. Gradually, that day’s noiselessness flew away with the vrooms of essential service vehicles and movements of community helpers.

A new day broke out, and Rachel woke up earlier than usual. She wished to start with the first day of work-from-home by taking in all the silence that the world exuded for one last time, and then let go – let go of the “pending-feeling” with acceptance.

Settling herself on the blue armchair, which rested beside the window, she began to breathe deeply. One…(inhale…exhale), two…(inhale…exhale). She was almost there. One more deep inhalation. One more, and it would chill her abdomen’s pit. It would hit the empty spot. It would prepare her for every grind of life.

“Dhundhla jaayein jo manzilein Ik pal ko tu nazar jhuka…”

The tune from the previous day began to pervade the air.

“Ugh! Again!” she frowned.

Was it a coincidence or pure design? Whatever it was, to her, it was aggravating to the hollows of her marrows. It soon became a routine, a cycle repeating itself like the movements of a clock. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get rid of that unsatisfied feeling only because Mrs Neighbour would not cease to hum, and mumble and sing the same song over, and over, and over again.

Rachel wondered why that woman sang the same song. She would have at least appreciated a little variety. Occasionally there were a few tunes in an unrecognisable tongue, which her mind somehow ignored, but otherwise they were majorly the same flavourless, colourless, and odourless song ringing all day.

Rachel gave up. Days passed by and she no longer welcomed the song with contempt; she had become numb. She tried to focus on the good of the moment. Apart from her neighbour’s hours of performance, her life was blessed with a good job, fine work hours, ample supplies, and plenty of self-care.

It was a Sunday. Rachel was preparing for an important meeting with her boss, when the news of their Society being sealed came in, because the Murugans had caught the virus, and that they were quarantined and treated in their house.

“Why am I the neighbour of the Murugans!” she ranted. Somewhere she feared the virus, just like the song, would infect her life, and fill it with an inescapable clamour. From that day on, she sanitized everything she used.

She was able to block the virus from infecting her, but she couldn’t escape the song; it always found a way through the closed window. In fact, this time it took a more crude form. Its melody was fractured, the tune ripped, and the lyric shredded. It was a cacophony. She could not comprehend how she could water such deep contempt for the Murugans. She journaled her restlessness, and had managed to create a tiny space of empathy for the otherwise inconspicuous couple.

The day after the meeting, an email crept into her inbox. She was among the bunch of efficient employees who were laid down because of the pandemic. A darkness, like the one when a PC is shut down, took over her. The stress of paying rent, supporting herself and the fears of the future gripped her. She fell into the arms of her blue chair. She tried finding comfort by crouching on the chair, but her feet couldn’t be held up. She turned to the right, facing away from the world, but her neck cracked. She turned to the left, to feel the breeze, but her hip caught a spasm. She tried resting her head on the left armrest, and pulled up her legs and let them dangle down the right, but the wood pressed against her now delicate skin. She twisted from left to right, turned front and back, and tried to disappear into the fabric of the chair, but the chair could hold her burden. She tried hugging herself; tapped gently on the left side of her shoulder. Nothing worked. She was sad. But not a tear desired to escape her eyes or her heart. She was anxious, but her heart was already dead. “Wake! Cry! Feel! I’ll be alright! This is not the end of the world! Trust me! I’m there for me!” Still nothing. She had drowned.

At that moment, the same melody, the song from the last few weeks filled her ears. Before she could frown and curse her neighbour, the meaning of the words seeped in. For the first time, the song, in its most unrefined form, felt better than the silence she had so yearned. It soothed her tear glands; a boiling tear slid down the trail of her nose, and revived her heart to throb. A pain choked her throat, before a gush of tears washed her face. It felt like she was on her mother’s lap; she felt better.

It had been two days since. She now began to wait for Mrs Murugan to sing. It was one thing she looked up to everyday now – one thing that kept her going. Although she had access to an uninterrupted internet, and the limitless variety of songs, there was a coldness she felt in every hum of the device. So, she waited.

Her waiting were always answered with Mrs Murugan’s voice, some days nightingale-like, some days like a muffled radio, but always constant.

One silent night, after Mrs Murugan had gone to sleep, having unknowingly lullabied Rachel into her silence, a strong siren split through the peace. It was blaring, annoying, and unnerving for Rachel, and most of the residence. Rachel, who was alarmingly awakened from her slumber, and was almost about to send out some negativity, remembered how unwise it was to react; she had learnt it in an uncommon way. She decided to give this one some concession. She hid her ears under her pillow and allowed the siren to fade in the background of the night, slowly falling back to sleep after hours of intermittent waking, peeking out the window and returning back to her bed.

The next morning, Rachel, despite being tired and sleepy, pulled herself awake at the usual time, and began to wait for the song. She waited, but there came no song, just silence. She thought to herself, “Maybe, Mrs Murugan is still sleeping. How can one not wake up late after a night that was disturbed by the noise of the siren? That ambulance was unusually loud!” She waited.

She waited a little longer. She waited a little more, when the depth of the silence dawned upon her with the sun. The siren, the stretcher, and the cadaver bag. Her hopeless wait continued… until a faint melody seemed to cut through the still air.

Dhundhla jaayein jo manzilein

Ik pal ko tu nazar jhuka…

Jhuk jaye sar jahan wahi

Milta hain rab ka rasta…

It emerged from the throat of Rachel’s mind. It kept playing in her head. And the silence remained.

- Mercy Rebonica