A few years ago, I visited a newly-built mall in one of the leafier parts of Bangalore. It was packed with people, as you might expect, and the traffic outside was a crawl. After a bit, we decided to step outside for our lunch and found a Darshini (a local eatery) a few metres down the road. We sat down to eat and got into a conversation with a man sitting at the next table. (You can do that in Darshinis)!
He said he had been coming to the Darshini for several decades, since he was a child. He talked about how quiet it used to be, even very recently, and how the walk along the street had been a most rejuvenating and regular early morning affair. He talked of the clean-smelling air in the morning and the fragrance-laden one at night – experiences that had defined the neighbourhood for him for decades.
“Many of us used to gather regularly here at the Darshini every morning”, he said. “It was a very good place to share what was happening in our lives with our friends and neighbours.
“It is all gone now”. He looked really wistful. “Since the mall construction started, there is so much traffic and noise. It starts even before we wake up and doesn’t end until well after midnight. The air has become so dusty, first because of the construction of the mall and now because of the traffic, that we keep our windows closed all day. And nobody wants to come to the Darshini anymore, because you can hardly hear what anyone is saying.
“But what can we do?” he continued. “They bought the land. It is their right to do whatever they want to with it”.
He said this hurriedly, unprompted, as if he was afraid he might be seen to be questioning this right.
That conversation has haunted me for the several years that have passed since. It wasn’t just that this man’s access to silence, clean air and meaningful community had disappeared overnight. What made it deeply disturbing was his belief that that was the natural order of things — with no hope or right of redressal.
There was a time, a long time ago, when land and air and water and open skies and silence were shared resources. They helped us live, grow our food, quench our thirst and rejuvenate our spirit. We then figured out a way to make land a personal (and, therefore, transferable) resource by dividing it, perhaps because it was easy to divide. We haven’t yet figured out how to divide air, open skies and silence, though we are furiously at work trying to divide water.
But something remarkable has happened along the way. Because we haven’t been able to divide silence, air or water, we no longer know how, or indeed whether, to value them.
Someone clearly sold the parcel of land that the mall was erected on. He did it legally, according to accepted practice and socially-sanctioned norms.
But who sold my silence? Or was it always worthless, to be appropriated by anyone who chose to do so?
Was the feeling of support and belonging that I felt among my friends and well-wishers an illusion, not even worth a protest when it was snatched away?
And why am I so scared to say that the open skies and the silence are precious to my existence and my sense of meaning in life, not an incidental “buy-one-get-one-free” appendage to your sale of land?
Who sold my silence?
Hey Chitta, today you can buy silence. Get yourself a Bose headphone that is fitted with the right counter waves. Since the sound of the Bose blocker cant be heard by us and since we buy this, we don't have to worry about the dogs that might write a similar blog!
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is now a bulky piece, so it will make you look like a space traveller, may even start a new craze. But, it will shut you into your space, nothing further that the nose will be in your consciousness and your friend from Darshini will be very lonely!
You have written a poignant piece, something that open space/silence-lovers will identify with. Firstly, it was a pleasure to read your thoughts after such a long time. And secondly, it was beautiful to read your thoughts on an issue that is so dear to me, and part of an issue that plagues all urban spaces. You will find it in Pune, Mumbai, Bhopal,Raipur.... Probably one of the reasons why I have never returned to Jamshedpur, the green town that I grew up in. I would rather remember it as it was - quiet, vast open green spaces- than have my childhood memories completely ground to sooty dust.
ReplyDeleteThe other day, I crossed the daunting new bridge (an engineering ode to urbanisation)across the river at Yerawada, that has neatly cut across and decimated the green spaces of Bund Garden, where senior citizens, children and couples in need of alone-ness would gather every evening.
I cherish and am fiercely possessive of the little patch of green at home that I nurture daily, as different birds & butterflies visit that green patch every morning - sparrows, bulbuls, cuckoos, parakeets, crow pheasants, sunbirds, fan-tailed flycatchers, brahminy starlings, spotted munias, magpie robins, egrets, mynahs - it makes your day.
Instead of donning Bose speakers and other gadgets to buy silence, perhaps nurturing similar patches of green may be a better path?
Aparna
This blog has beautifully expressed the anguish i go through everytime i go home to Chennai...i dont recognize the beach, the street, the neighbours any more and none of the old hangouts exists. So now its facebook which seems to have the space for nurturing relationships and for sharing thoughts. What was the most powerful statement in the blog was the fact that we all have accepted it so easily without a fight!! This reminded me of another time, in another context; I was working as a teacher trainer in a large mainstream school in Dubai (500 teachers only!). My room was directly opposite one of the supervisors named Mr Young. Young's main job(as he saw it) was to line up the boys (sent out by teachers) abuse them and hit them with a scale (although illegal in dubai) all over the place. I decided to include to my training programs, sessions on the impact of such actions on the child , invite psychologists etc...so while planning for the same I interviewed the boys. "Ma'am, of course we dont like being hit and abused, but you see they are doing it for our own good. Thats why we dont complain". I died a thousand deaths that day. We have brainwashed them into silence.
ReplyDeleteSo very very true!
ReplyDeleteI would have titled the piece 'who stole my silence?'
When my neighbours demolish their old house and build a tower of pigeon holes in its place, apart from making a killing for themselves,
in the process, they definitely 'steal' my silence (blaring tvs, dolby/surround sound systems, quirky cellphone ringtones, wierdo wall-clock chimes, car reversing sirens...ad nauseam )
They also steal my right of way, steal the water pressure in my tap, steal my privacy (no more can I sit in my garden sipping my tea without becoming a spectacle), steal my share of breeze and sunlight (am forced to keep fans and lights on all day/night) and more!
No permission, discussion, compensation, not even consideration of any kind...that's why I say 'steal'.
Sure, I agree, "We haven’t yet figured out how to divide air, open skies and silence"... but countries already fight over air space don't they?
and going by the way we buy water, we'll be buying packets of sunlight and bottles of breeze...very soon isn't it?
We already pay through our noses to get a taste of wide open spaces, and see wild and free creatures, and pay even more handsomely to nurture the great quiet without and within us!
Who sold my silence.. what a finely written article! Thanks Chittaranjan ji for such a wonderful write up. I t is so close to my heart.The silence says it all. Please write more of such notes. Thanks!
ReplyDelete