Mezannine Musings
These are some irregular diary entries I had maintained between January-March, 2020, before all human life went into quarantine.
3 January
I have come to stay with my parents for a while in Kolkata to finish writing my dissertation. Life in Delhi was weighing me down and I decided to crawl back into the womb for a while, as it were, to get my act back together. Nothing short of a guilty insulation from the political turmoil in the world around would do any good to my studies, I had finally realised at the end of an especially anxious and unproductive semester.
My parents live in a house on the corner of a quiet street located some distance away from the busyness of city commerce, and the room that they have set up for me as a study, from which I write this, is a charming spot in this spacious house. There are many reasons to love it, particularly in the pleasant Kolkata winter. Most of all, I like its in-betweenness, for it is the mezannine floor — not quite ground, and not quite first floor either. A sliding glass panel separates and largely sound proofs the room from the activities on the ground floor, where all the other rooms are. On the other hand, it lets in the light and sounds and smells from the world outside the window. It is the perfect writer’s/artiste’s studio, although I attempt to produce no masterpiece here. In between training my mind to focus on my research writing, I will try to record the fragments of the world (sweet distractions!) that float into this room bit by bit.
5 January
My first sensation in this room, after noting how airy and radiant with natural light it was, was the sound of birds. I don’t exaggerate when I say that I can hear more birds than humans here — and not the quietest neighbourhood in Delhi can make this proud claim. Many birds visit our garden and terrace and their varied cheeping and cooing intensifies in the early evening. I stopped counting when I reached ten — ravens, crows, mynahs, tailor birds, koels, bulbuls, babblers, drongos, pigeons, and that most uncommonest of them all, the common sparrow. Daily they conduct their orchestra, and daily I get free passes to their show. Their sounds make the other human sounds around more bearable, more distant, and open up the worlds of skies and trees.
10 January
The house is located in an upper middle-class residential neighbourhood and is mercifully not surrounded by tall buildings, which has been possible so far since it has successfully resisted commercialisation and its attendant disruptions. Builders are vigilant though, and there is latent friction between the Bengalis and the Marwaris like elsewhere in the city — with the Bengalis resisting the ‘Marwari-isation’ of the neighbourhood. The aesthetics of the houses of the respective communities are distinct and revealing of priorities and preferences that must appear incommensurable to both — I myself prefer the elaborate gardens, low walls, and fetching colours of one lot over the high gilded gates and loud, careless colours of the other. Look at me carrying over from Delhi my C R Park v/s GK prejudices!
In any case, a diverse crowd passes under the window each day. Women buying vegetables, rickshaw-drivers (not pullers) whirring past with their new battery-driven vehicles, plumbers, electricians, maids, and gardeners on their cycles, noisy BMWs and bulky bikes honking out their arrival, tired parents walking their untired children home from school. I hear many accents and realise anew how many this city holds, and despite our times, how diversity remains intrinsic to its character. There are the usual distinct Bengali dialects, but apart from those I have also heard Bihari, Marwari, Haryanvi, and Punjabi. Groups of collegegoers too pass by, teasing and flirting and laughing. Sometimes a young man or woman pauses beneath the window, in the shade of the neem tree on the pavement, to speak to their beloved, under the mistaken assumption of privacy, and I not too reluctantly am privy to one half of a tender conversation. I feel equally involved in the woes of many others who walk or cycle while venting their frustrations and joys to the encouragement or pity of their companions. I am now in the know of (anonymous) money troubles, demanding employers, exacting clients, cruel spouses, and snide in-laws. I know, for instance, of an Uddham Singh who has to be explained his work as if he were a child, and the source of my insight has been unleashing a torrent of words to an assuredly hapless interlocutor at the other end of his phone. The pace at which humans speak is fascinating. After three decades of living , I realise I cannot stand two kinds of speakers — those who drawl, and those who enunciate each word with equal emphasis. Words should ebb and flow and not take effort, when possible. Or of course, there are always other ways of communicating, just that we don’t know to listen — but I ramble.
I must admit my pleasant surprise at the profusion of people whistling, singing and laughing on their way to/fro their busy lives. I don’t remember witnessing such casual contentment on Delhi streets. Or is it this season that makes their hearts sing?
15 January
Many hawkers ply these streets. They belong to an older, rapidly dying world predating supermarkets and online deliveries. Each vegetable seller has his own distinct pitch and call, which veteran ears like those of my mother’s can easily identify even in a medley. Then there is the rhythmic clanging of the keymaker with his tool box hoisted on his shoulder, and the equally musical twang of the cotton fluffer’s instrument. All these hawkers (the criers) have developed their own unique cries in advertisement of their goods and services, but some of them sound so stylised to my alien ears that I have never been able to tell what exactly it is that they are selling. But there are those who sell on borrowed voices. These are the 30-rupees-everything sellers of miscellaneous plastic items (the players). Several of them pass this way every day, each playing his own pre-recorded, polished sales pitch in persuasive expert diction. Their articulacy never fails to draw my attention. Roughly, this is what they all invariably say: “Thirty rupees, thirty rupees. Neither more, nor less. Sister, Sister-in-law, Aunty: what are you thinking about? Come and see. Each item, thirty rupees only. Please do not bargain. Thirty rupees, thirty rupees” Their carts are the most attractive to watch, with their tumbling display of cheap mugs, doormats, combs, clothes pegs, etc. but they stand less favourably in my eyes in contrast with the others. The ‘players’ play a script performed by others, the ‘criers’ make music out of their wares; the ‘player’ seduces with the promise of disposable household items, the ‘crier’ offers to repair things and make them last; the ‘players’ seem replaceable, the ‘criers’ seem indistinguishable from their trades. One is growing, the other is dying out. And then there are those working nearby whose instruments and machines have become the extensions of their very bodies — hammers and drills behind which their own voices are drowned.
25 January
The house directly opposite mine runs a school for differently-abled children. Things were quiet there when I arrived here, but I think the school reopened a few days back after winter vacations. The first floor window is open now, wafting out the voices of a loud, sometimes encouraging, sometimes impatient, male instructor, and a softer, more hesitant and unclear voice of a pupil repeating after him. The floor below is listening to rabindra sangeet on the television or radio. An elderly couple daily sun themselves in the morning, in my direct line of vision. They have their fixed spots — she faces me, and he faces her, so I don’t know yet what he looks like. Their postures and her face — both exude the quiet resignation of old age. Sometimes they talk for a while, and for the rest of the time she follows passersby with her gaze, which sometimes turns into a frown when a flamboyantly noisy bike crosses her. I don’t know what he gazes at, except the curtains at the entrance of the house — and her, of course. Silent, peaceable companionship, as far as the eye of a stranger can see. They sit outside for about an hour and then slowly rise and move back inside, she dragging the chairs after them, behind the curtain. Theirs is a delightfully painted house, almost like an edible one emerging from a fairy tale: sun yellow base and pink accents, with little blocks of green, blue, orange, and brown lined up on one wall. I call it the Gems house. When my eyes grow weary from the computer screen, I turn my head to the left and gaze at the Gems House, and read the school board with its motto, ‘Hope is Life’.
Edit: The elderly man passed away from cardiac arrest in the first week of quarantine. He had a sparse and lonely funeral, with few attendees.
20 February
Kirtan Dadu is back. I don’t know his name, and never bothered to find it out. An elderly man bent with age and wisdom, he goes around the neighbourhood in the mornings singing his Krishna kirtan in a soulful voice that breaks with rising passion. He smiles broadly when we greet him or give food or alms or clothes to him. I have seen him in these parts ever since my grandparents shifted here, many years ago. He was on especially good terms with my grandfather, who, even when frail and housebound in his last days, would listen out for him and then direct us to make this or that donation on his behalf. His rounds are punctual, only the timings vary by an hour in keeping with the season, but he comes without fail, and sings. And in between songs, he lures the world at large to the path of devotion. He is a hawker too, only his wares are otherworldly and intangible. For some he is eccentric, for others, his eccentricity is perfectly permissible because he is spiritually-inclined. I doubt he would find acceptance, leave alone indulgence, if not for the scaffolding of religion. (What happens to the eccentric in an atheistic world?) For the past few weeks, we had not been hearing him and today when we heard him and my mother rushed out to speak to him, we learnt that he had suffered a fall and had been on bed rest. And just like that, our clocks are reset.
It’s early evening and the kids from living in the house opposite ours — cousins all, I believe — have come out to play badminton/football in the street. The other day their ball landed in our garden and they asked for it and when I asked them why they don’t go to play in the nearby (quite decent) park, one of them chimed in, “There may be snakes there, aunty.” Ouch.
Edit: Kirtan dadu continues to come by daily despite the lockdown. When we tried to talk him out of it, he simply replied, “I am only taking the name of God”.
8 March
There is this crow who visits us daily with a peculiar habit — he tugs at wires. Clotheslines, phonelines, television cables — he has a spirited go at all of them. He does not seem to be bothered at how unyielding they are, he does not care that other crows go after twigs for their nests; indeed I have laid out twigs for him which he has resolutely ignored. I don’t know whether I should appreciate his tenacity or berate his foolishness. Then again, we all defy expectations and compulsively indulge in our own quirks, however big or small. We can’t seem to help the Nana Patekars inside us all. Perhaps so can’t he. So I call him NP. It seems a human trait to my anthropocentric eye, but then again, crows in mythology are known to be our ancestors returned, thus meant to be treated and fed respectfully. In this too we imagine our ancestors as irritable and scolding, even beyond death! In another culture, packs of crows are called murders. We shudder at such blasphemy.
The toddler next door is wailing. I listen to the mother’s voice and gauge her mood or energy levels — sometimes she coos, sometimes she snaps and scolds. Someone has dropped by to admire the baby. The adults speak for a while, and then the squeaky toys take over.
15 March
The weather is turning warmer…spring-summer is here. Fewer people strolling carefree in the streets while the sun is up. Fewer people lingering under my window to catch up on a phone call. Movement is more hurried and people are beginning to rush towards their destination. I never thought of this before — how we are different people in different seasons and different places. Weather, season, air: in short, we are constantly navigating time and space even as we think we are the same as a month ago.
22 March
Today was the Janta Curfew day. This quiet neighbourhood where mostly retirees reside, was absolutely still today, as if even the winds were playing ‘statue’. But the street dogs had taken over the world below as the birds have taken over the world above. A few radios were the only sign of human presence, and were awash in a peaceful Sunday. Until suddenly. The air was rent with the sound of a conch being blown. I did not make much of it. It was the time of evening prayers and thus the sound wasn’t out-of-place, but soon there was the clanging of spoons against steel plates and glasses. Balconies on all floors of houses all around were flooded with people following the high command in expressing this symbolic gesture of appreciation for those who continue to serve the public in such dangerous times. The politics of this public ritual aside, I was absorbed in the spectacle before me, and even as my ears were protesting against the din, I rushed to the terrace to record the event on my phone. Many of us my neighbours were seeing each other properly for the first time. It then struck me why so many people were participating in this — the occasion to be a part of something bigger, marketed as a noble act of appreciation, however dubiously symbolic, and the pressing need to make our human presence felt in homebound times after a long day of silence and enforced rest. It was a release. And it showed on the pleased faces of all around.
But largely it amounts to this — we have forgotten to remain still and quiet. I remember being rather fond of load sheddings (not powercuts) as a child. It felt like a guilty, perverse pleasure at the time. But I now understand it for what it felt like and is so hard to come by for many of us from middle-class urban life today — the sudden darkness and quiet, the slow, fumbling movements, the filtering in of sounds from the world outside, the surprising rush of a cool breeze, and above all that enforced solitude that was as big a comfort for some of us as it was unsettling for the rest. Today we go courting solitude far and wide, and have to create new rituals to escape the din inside our heads.
I have recorded some of the sounds described above (and more) and stitched them together into an audiostory ‘Streetsounds’ on Soundcloud. These are all sounds that I miss sorely now in the deathly still of quarantine — well, almost all of them.
