You can hear the violent sounds of water running down the stale potholes on the inter - twining roads. The rain prefers the dark nights to explode onto us people – as if to add flavor to the already nauseating upheavals of each day. It encourages auto rickshaw drivers to charge more money, tempt the rich to splash water on a stranded pedestrian, challenge the motorists to withstand prickling drops of water on their glasses – to encourage anger within individuals scale new heights.
Or does it actually give us that occasional opportunity to express our true emotions? Does it provide an excuse to relieve the human mind of the increasing frustration, and anxiety carefully concealed behind glossy smiles, and nonchalant discussions aimed at social inclusion of oneself?
Why is so important for each of us to glow in the laughter and banter of baseless conversations amidst an army of people, while aggressively guard the loud screams inside our own heads for things we truly want others to understand. Is it for fear of being heard and ostracized, condemned? Or is it actually the fear of being completely unheard and unnoticed?
A very famous pair of songwriters once warned the world against the Sounds of Silence, clearly no one heard them. Have we become accustomed to only to acknowledge high decibels levels of thumping club music, rowdy road rages, and the slogan shouting of the Indian gerontocracy? Does it really take so much effort for a lover to hear the silent sobs of her partner, a child to understand the unhappiness seeping within her aging mother, a teacher to identify the growing frustration within a student?
We clearly are not listening very well.
When did society start to instruct us to prove ourselves by not listening? Not listening to directions, not listening to announcements, not listening to cries of the homeless, not listening to the loud explosions of regular bomb blasts, and most of all, not listening to each other. Do we realize what impact has it had on our friends, parents, co workers, partners? Does it not further inhibit the development of progressive thought, fresh ideas, new discoveries?
We cannot let ourselves be bound within our inner recesses. We were created to reach out to one another, listen and learn from the other, discuss, argue, agree, disagree, opine on matters. We were created to collectively create egalitarian society. And one doesn’t need to sacrifice a city life and live among the Dharavi slums for that, or donate monetarily towards American do good organizations. One just needs to take out a few minutes to listen – call a friend who you know is hurting, call your mother who loves to hear your voice, sit with a colleague who is unable to perform, e-mail your old professor who taught you lessons of life along with chemistry.
We need to start listening now before someone stops speaking.
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