noise | THE FUNKY WRITER

It just seems as if it happened yesterday. For the cacophony to shake off my head, I think it’s going to take a long time……………………………………………………

…………………………………………………….Well, here I go.

The auditory nerves almost blasted with the racket that was going on outside. They said, they were catching a monkey. I was startled. “What on earth for?” I asked. “That monkey has bitten over 50 people in the neighborhood. The news was so rapidly hot that it made its way to the local newspapers,” Mum replied. And then shot back. “So no monkeying around’’.

She was right. The monkey was a menace. It bit nearly in front of my eyes a poor laborer, about 18 years old on his wrist. He bled profusely. I believe it loved to target college students. Nearly half of his trauma bearers were college going hostel dwellers. It had attacked 3 girls, all of whose names were published in the newspapers.

By my natural instincts, to tell you the truth, I am worse than a monkey. But during those days my endless seeming entrance examinations were going on, pretty much important to me like what is the Sea of Tranquility to our lonesome moon. So I was not going to fool around. But you should have checked on the residents. The boys were on their bikes with long bamboo sticks, shouting and screeching back at the sole monkey, who was perhaps a mad one. In the hot sun, they all were in the hot pursuit of our poor ancestor, who seemed to have lost his mind. The people out there were plotting to catch and kill him.

I was furious. “Why can’t they just tranquillize it and send it to a forest?” I asked many times. Having attacked so many, it was not so easy for our dear monkey fellow to sleuth back to the forest easily. The problem here was that the forest officials did not pay any heed to the people’s woes; and so the daring boys instead of catching the monkey stopped the forest officials for nearly 3 hours. Finally, the job was done. After 4 days of pursuit, the monkey was caught and sent to a nearby forest. Ah, peace at last. Now again I could settle down to study.

Let me rewind a bit back. I’ve titled this post as the melody of noise, isn’t it? So the noisy part is over. Now comes the “melodious” part.

During my board exams in March, I was surprised to find a couple in my colony vibrantly attracted to music. They had music CDs of all latest Hindi songs, and their day began with prayers from a FM radio. So devoted, you must be thinking. But they seemed to make us more fanatics about these recorded voices. The maximum volume would be set after that, all ready to bang our ear drums with the tunes flowing in and all my physics lessons flowing out. I am the poorest of all the people living here. I stay just next door. And it is almost impossible to cut the sounds even if you close all your doors and windows. The screamers, I name them. While talking on the phone too, they shout on the top of their voices.

Finally, I could no more tolerate it and then the next day I complained. “Aunty”, I pleaded, “please slow down your music. My exams are on.” She dutifully switched off the noise box. The very next day, her male counterpart began the tantrums again. “Switch it off, for God’s sake”, I shouted back. This time I feel he got embarrassed, as a few neighbors sniggered in front of him. I was glad.

Thank God for neighbors.