I happened to listen to Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" accidentally when I was randomly looking for good quality piano piece of "Love Story" (Hollywood movie) theme. This song depicting the sound of silence fascinated me so much that I could not resist myself from writing this piece. I am really not sure the reason behind this song; but, after some research, I did find that it was written after the assassination of the US President, John F Kennedy. But, I can relate this song with the changes that happened in my daily routine as my office got shifted to new facility last week.
The lyrics of "The Sound Of Silence":
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
Now, let me analyze this with changes happened to my daily routine. This song makes me very significant w.r.t to changes happened to my daily routine because of office moving to new facility. Let me explain -
The time of disturbance towards my “sound of silence (sleep)” has not been changed as I get up from my bed at the same when my office was in Koramangala. However, everything else is changed from then onwards. I used to commute to old office empty buses with unknown faces and nobody had dare to disturb my sound of silence. I used to make a detour to Majestic bus stand w/o disturbing my sound of silence (that is w/o uttering a word) until I reach office. Many of the times, I've never spoken until I reach office. However, now even if I try to be silent, “known” faces disturb it; if not people, FM channels won't leave me alone. These channels bombard with high decibel utter non-sense illogical lyrical shit and hence disturbing my sound of silence. With this new office commute, my dreams which were seeded during my sleep were destroyed as my sound of silence has been destroyed with utter non-sense FM channels!
Most of the time, I was the first person to be in office in my old building. The scenario was so beautiful as there was nobody except the sound of A/C if that was switched on. The office was also happy with its own sound of silence and might be cursing me because I was the known face who was disturbing its dreams that were seeded during its sleep with a sound produced from my laptop mounting on the docking station! The scene in new building is totally different. I've whole lot of people at that time with full of disturbance to sound of silence!
In old office, the silence breaker was my manager (Oops! my ex-manager), Ravi Rao, who used to pull me out for a tea! Most of the times, I would have uttered my first word of the day at this time! The discussion would invariably on music or on the adventures of his daughter! I miss them nowadays!
Let me fast forward out clocks to lunch. It used to take 30 minutes in our old office for a peaceful lunch; but here we are forced to have our lunch in b/w the people who are talking without eating; people who are listening without eating; people are cursing that are never shared!
Now, let’s go back to song.
“Fools", said I, "You do not know…. Silence like a cancer grows…..Hear my words that I might teach you…. Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed In the wells of silence
So nice lines! Now, it is high time to consider the above line! I cannot keep my sound of silence like this! Otherwise the cancer of disturbance increases. So, I need to make noise to reduce the disturbance in any form; but as written above and from previous examples, it is evident that my noise will be so much that it will be more than 20K Decibels or less than 20 decibels making them not audible! In other words, it can be as silent as rain drops or it is getting echoed within the walls of mind or cubicle or GM!
As I am completing this, my mind says - "The Silence of Sound" similar to ending of "The silence of lambs".
- AR
