The travails of a resident in a concrete jungle called city are no exaggeration. Setting an alarm to wakeup early is a thing of the past. The hissing sound of the pressure cooker from the kitchen right adjacent to the bedroom is the first bell. The poor lady must be racing against time to prepare breakfast and lunch packs for her kids and spouse. Her loud calls by pet names, pushing and prodding the children, are like a ‘snooze’.
If there is a shrine or a devoted neighbour, you are privileged to be woken up by ‘Suprabhatam’. Then you have the ‘beeps’ and ‘dhad-dhads’ of elevators used by the early birds — the maids, paper boys and milk vendors. And if some user doesn’t shut the lift door properly, the audio alerts certainly are no music to your ears.
If you are ‘bed-ridden’, the non-stop honking by school buses urging the late kates to board is the final straw. The ‘learned’ parents who drop their children in their own vehicles also do the same when they want the apartment gates opened in a jiffy by the watchman.
The unnecessary honks of shuttle-taxis also get you annoyed. With power cuts anytime, the decibel levels of ‘sound-proof’ generators all around make you tear your hair out.
Drilling bores to great depths in search of water is a common phenomenon, especially in summer. The cyclic sounds of variety in the process are incessant. By the time it is over, the eardrums will be jammed. The reprieve is only temporary and it starts again in another part of the colony.
Dust pollution comes free with the sound. A decade ago, when this operation was continued at night the residents would object vociferously. Now when it is carried out in daylight, the techies working night-shifts pick an heated argument with the rig operator.
It is the same tribe that makes the weekends most dreaded. The jazz and cacophony well past midnight are a nightmare. If you try to hit the sack early, the unending friendly or business mobile chats of a neighbour will make you restless. And if you do not have a snoring Kumbhakarna in the vicinity, consider yourself lucky.
At some time past midnight, the siren of the rakshak jeeps, probably cautioning the nisaacharaas reaches your sub-conscious mind. Suddenly woken up, the street dogs start barking in unison and see off the patrol party ceremoniously. The gurkhaas can do nothing but go around whistling and ‘beating’ the roads with lathis till the wee hours.
And it starts all over again!
( The writer’s email: rameshkosaraju@gmail.com )
