Listen to our Noise!!

It is always amazing to discover….think of any topic and do a Google search…within a few seconds, you will see millions of related topics staring at you! What had to be written seems to have been written million times over and perhaps thought through a zillions times over. When I picked the topic describing us Indians as “noisy,” I wondered what’s new that can be written as a story?

I can easily think of one – top of the mind recall…India is the only country where you can make noise and get paid for it…now, whether one pays to earn a few minutes of silence or pays because of the satisfaction of the service received is perhaps left best to the individual. Right or Wrong, I for one wouldn’t like to venture finding the perfect answer!

A typical day in the neighborhood starts with the an experiment with the truth…Pavlov’s dog and I remember having posted a small piece in my Facebook profile a couple of months back; actually a couple of years back – noise does make time fly!! Unlike most writers and bloggers, I would like to quote from my own text: “I am sure you must have read or heard about Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s famous experiment on ‘Classical Conditioning’ called ‘Pavlov’s Dog’. A bell is rung before the dog receives his food. Repeat this process and the dog automatically salivates upon hearing the sound of the bell. In a comical manner I found myself to be a victim of this classical conditioning syndrome! Ever since Bangalore Municipal Corporation took over maintenance of our locality about a year back, we have a 3-wheeler garbage van visiting the neighborhood, door-to-door. To announce his arrival, the assistant blows sharply on his whistle tied to a thread and worn as a necklace. Initially, I found his blowing the whistle pretty stupid, but a few months of his irregular call, the moment we hear a sharp whistle, one of us at home rushes out with the garbage to get rid of the generally piling waste! The conditioning is so perfect that the mind does not discern…these days, the moment we hear the whistle, it is assumed that the garbage van is at the door-step. It gets confusing when on a Sunday morning, you want to catch an extra wink and then you suddenly hear that sharp whistle. Startled, I hurriedly woke up and groggily took the pile of garbage to the front gate, only to discover that a friendly neighborhood kid on his new bicycle was blowing hard and furiously on his new toy whistle. I wonder who was more surprised – the kid or me, when I kept peering past the kid to see where the garbage van had so quickly disappeared. I wondered with a sheepish grin, why Pavlov had to experiment with a dog, with so many of us, dumb fellas around!”

A while later, one hears a series of vegetable vendors selling all varieties of greens shouting hard and strong. The timing is perfect…the spouse who does the cooking can actually decide on a daily basis on what to cook based on which vegetable vendor is noticed and called first besides the variety of greens being sold. When I asked my wife one day about what’s cooking for breakfast, she said wait till the first vegetable vendor calls – I will decide once I complete the purchase.

Having crossed this hurdle on what to cook for breakfast, lunch or dinner (keep in mind that any two of the meals is a repeat, what you have for breakfast gets packed as lunch, for example); the next loud noise you hear on the street outside is a series of women with large baskets of flowers, delicately perched on their heads – the entire spectrum of seasonal flowers are readily available at the doorstep. At this time I must add that each of our Gods must be worshiped with a particular flower of his or her choice to get their blessings. You make a wrong offering and the God’s may think you are crazy! Again the timing  of the arrival of these flower vendors is near perfect…fresh after a shower, the first thing our folks do is to light a lamp in God’s own room and decorate the place of worship with flowers of his or her choice. The arrival time of these flower vendors is after all not a coincidence, but designed keeping in mind the daily household routine.

Close on their heels and since charity begins from home, there are visits by a series of alms-takers and believe it or not, they announce their arrival by using a variety of noise making  instruments. A conch could be an example and blowing hard into it can melt your inner emotions into giving. Then there are others accompanied by an emaciated four legged living thing. They use a simple metal plate and a metal rod to make noise of their arrival…the metal to metal clanking can be extremely irritating and God forbid if you ask these folks to move on, noise is produced with vengeance – it can probably bring even the roof down!! One is compelled to pay to buy some peace, and isn’t that crazy? This reminds of the comic strip ‘Hagar the Horrible’ and the troubles he faces when the taxman comes knocking on his door! We aren't as creative as Hagar in giving excuses and instead, pay-up.

Once people at home settle down for their first hard earned break after serving breakfast to the school going children and office-goers and later see them off, the next noise-maker isn’t far away…he’s our home-grown rag-picker also called Kabadiwala, he will want anything from your home starting from old newspapers to broken-down gadgets. While he does compensate with some money, it’s a question of accumulating a sizable chunk before disposing the trash. But the way these vendors come and shout in front of each house, one would feel that we have little else to do but manufacture junk daily. Over time I have noticed that these street vendors start off at a young age, their voice at an apologetically low level – almost as if they were sorry to disturb your peace at home. With time however, it becomes a full-throat blast and when you do have something to dispose, they just bark making you feel as if they were doing you a favor for taking away the trash. Isn't this a great “Negotiations Tactic.”

Having generally got your trash cleared and the home restored to its homely self, it’s the turn of the gentle, yet aggressive carpet and bed-spread vendors. Mind you these don’t come cheap and at best one can purchase a bed-spread once-in-a-year and I would call that a luxury! A carpet usually lasts for some nine or eleven odd years; purchasing is really a rare occurrence. But the way these vendors come knock on your door, ring the bell till you open it out of sheer frustration, one would think buying a carpet is a daily chore…

Just as you have made yourself a small lunch, there comes the next shocker…the fortune-teller with his “budbudkay” – this is a miniaturized version of a 2-sided drum, a palm top variety with two attached strings and a hardened knot on its free end. As this guy twists and rolls his palm with the miniature drum, the knotted string knocks hard on the drum-skin making a peculiar sound – literally translated from sound to word is the word itself – budbudkay!! The younger the fortune-teller, more is the swishing of the palm and more the noise. These young guys are kind off home grown mind readers (undoubtedly, this is an acquired skill) and if by mistake their eyes fall on you while walking past, he will most certainly plant himself at your doorstep and reel out all that happens in general with any family in any case, the world over. In a moment of weakness, it is likely to appear that this fortune-teller knows everything about your past and who knows he may have some solution or a trick to rid you of your present problems. At the end of it all, you may feel lighter in your mind however, it will be sometime before you realize that you are lighter on your wallet too.

After a light meal, when you decide that it is time to catch up with your afternoon siesta, you have the courier boys come knocking. At times it could get pretty comical with the questions that these folks are likely to ask. My son’s debit card was sent through courier and when my wife answered the door, the first question before handing over the package was “How is Rahul related to you Maam?” My wife replied, "he is my son". So far so good! The second question was the clincher…”For how many years do you know him?” Wow, I realized, we have indeed become slaves of the script!! The second incident took place when I was at home and answered the courier’s call. The package was addressed to me from my banker – they had sent me the monthly statement. The first question was “What is your name Maam? (they are so used to women answering the door, he must have been wondering what is this stupid guy doing at home!). When I answered ‘Viswanath’, his next question foxed me completely, “How are you related to Viswanath R Rao – the name on the package.” My mind was racing on establishing a link between me and myself, when thankfully he realized his own folly and retreated saying, “That’s okay, Maam!”

Afternoon and evening hours are peaceful with lesser vendors but there are occasional visits by vendors with cart-load of plastic buckets, aluminum pots & pans, who trade for old used vessels and plastics at home for new replacements. It can get pretty interesting for an onlooker, but when the stakes are high, arguments can get very heated – it would be impossible to tell who is the winner and who the loser! Call it a win-win situation…both feel immensely satisfied that each of them got the best deal!!

In general, the fruit vendor is the last in the series with his cart full of fresh seasonal fruits – dinner is incomplete without a fruit as a dessert. Off late and to my dismay, I find some of the flower vendors coming late in the evening trying to either hive off their unsold goods or convince us that the flowers will be in full bloom the following day! One among this tribe has such a loud voice that he can be heard three streets away and I am seriously not joking.

These days people talk about recession and the existing tight monetary controls. However, there is no respite in home construction and extension activities. Construction activities take place round the clock and the high speed drills, pneumatic sledge-hammers, grinding machines, ceramic tile cutters only add to the noise and clutter. The final straw is the borewell machines that come with their self-contained power units. The noise from this combo units can be unrelenting and finally when they reach the water table after a couple of days of round-the-clock boring and the combo unit is finally switched off, there is a deafening silence!  Finally, some respite to the ears...

It also makes me wonder about what are we missing? The noise - you bet!! We, the don’t care Indians are indeed very noisy. And, by the way did I forget to add the noise we create for ourselves at home and call it music?

Cheers!!