Sound and silence

Last Sunday, I walked into a Catholic cathedral. As I sat on the cushion-less pew, a bit early for the mass, I heard the bell clang repeatedly inviting the faithful to service. It reminded me of my long years in the Middle East where I was roused at an unearthly hour by the Azaan urging sundry believers to the mosque.

- IT CAME TO MIND | MANISH NANDY

Then there was the memory of insistent percussion in India every time there was a religious festival, urging the awake and asleep to the nearest rally of worshippers.

In Abu Dhabi or Muscat, I belonged to the large herd of kafirs or nonbelievers who resented the loud broadcast of call-to-prayer well before daybreak. In Kolkata, many believers and nonbelievers alike resented the earsplitting drumbeat of worship, especially as it started before dawn and continued past midnight.

This sensitivity to sound surprises me because my childhood was spent in a noisy city, Kolkata. We lived in a large building at the juncture of two main thoroughfares, then called the Harrison Road and the Cornwallis Street, named after two feckless British officers, one a mayor of the capital city and the other a Governor General. From dawn, trams moved noisily on their metal tracks and noisier buses plied endlessly and raucously north to south, or east to west.