Listen

At my school in the states, this is the first day of actual classes. That means Inderpreet is now dealing with that same apprehension I was feeling two days ago when I first assumed responsibility for my two classes. But if our experiences parallel each other at all, I’m sure she’s going to have an amazing experience. I’m so glad to finally be teaching. I’ve got so much to say about the students, the staff and the school (all positive, by the way!) but I need some more time to figure out how to break it into small pieces for all of you. Give me a couple more days.

Right now, I’m feeling the need to write small. In a place as overwhelming and as beautifully chaotic as India, I feel a real need to zoom in on one thing and share that with you. I think now I want to tell you what India sounds like. Sadly, my technology skills and this blog limit my ability to actually allow you to hear this place, but I’ll do my best to describe it.



As the sun sets over the City Beautiful, small noises come to me from every side. The fan whirs overhead, cars honk in the street behind and below us. A little girl who lives two buildings over circles our block on her bicycle, the bell trilling each time she passes. Somewhere, someone is watching a Bollywood movie with the volume way up (I’m pretty sure the same lady sings all the songs in those films). Right now, one of the vendors pushing his cart around our block wails out in Hindi, tempting with a limeade drink that I’m betting isn’t made with filtered water. Moments later, the newspaper man pedals past, shouting out another Hindi word in low, strong tones.



Below me, the iron gate on our apartment swings open, creaking and clanging when it comes back home. And a dog—one of the many strays populating Chandigarh—growls, perhaps warding off someone who has come to peek at the pups she’s been hiding beneath our neighbors overgrown hedge. An apple vendor, not shouting as vigourously as the other hawkers, sounds so sad in his cry that I almost want to go and buy a few.



Now, the balloon man races past. Behind him trail bouquets of balloons and the kind of toys I used to beg my mother to buy me from the grocery store, tethered to the back of his beaten bicycle like the tail of a kite. The bleating of some weird kazoo he keeps fixed in his mouth begs children to spend a few Rupee on one of his treasures.



Its almost indescribable how the air crackles with sound here. I don’t think I’ve known a quiet moment since we arrived. Even at school, the open windows, chatter of the students, scraping of the metal chair legs on the slab floor, and the most terrifying dismissal bell I’ve ever heard all speak of an India that is always in motion. It’s a place that teems with life. In ways it seems chaotic, all this noise. But I find that if I pay attention, something more rhythmic and orchestrated emerges from these sounds. I’m just learning to listen, but I can already hear snatches of the song.