Silence.

The word itself has got unnerving undertones. Like something that was meant to happen but did not. A subtle manifestation of somebody who just ceased to exist. A wisp of feeling that got trapped inside, like a fresh twig of a sapling caught in the roots of the big old oak. It would perhaps be months before it got a chance to have a peek outside.

Silence is the music of melancholy.

On a more unassuming note though, silence always has had a sound. Kalam’s words resonate here: “There’s no darkness, it’s just the absence of light”. There has never been silent stillness; silence is just the absence of perceived sound. 

I hear a sound when the agile lizard ticks to warn its prey. But the sound of its soft scuttling feet rubbing on the walls escapes my ears.

I hear a sound when the elated frogs croak an ode to the monsoon.  But I don’t hear them catching many a lazy fly.

The chime sticks in my room cling and clang against themselves when a gust hits. But with the breeze blowing and rubbing against them, I hear nothing.

Such is the sound of silence.

A world of activities goes on this way in the world around us, encased in an ocean of calmness. Free from perception and the pollution from perception.

As time treads on the mill, more and more noise builds up walls around us. Take a day, a time out, for shutting down the noise, scaling the walls and just plunging, free-fall into the well of silence.

"And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence”  (-Simon and Garfunkel)

-Palash