- Prema Jayakumar
‘Hello darkness, my old friend…. And the vision that was planted in my brain/ still remains/ within the sounds of silence.’
An old song from the 1967 movie The Graduate which had cult status for quite some time. I don’t remember the movie very well. But I have always remembered the phrase ‘the sounds of silence’. Even if the meaning of the phrase in the song was not fully positive, I have always thought of the sounds of silence as a positive feeling, a description of the small movements and sounds that make up the fabric of silence.
Have you ever sat alone in an old house after darkness fell, reading perhaps, writing perhaps, doing something that does not make a noise? Have you listened to the old house? It groans, sighs, there’s a sound like a footstep on the stairs. If you believe in ghosts and haunting and the rest of it, you might even get scared. But even if some childhood piece of you is scared, there is something magical in the sounds of the house, the whispers, the knocks, the sighs. This happens too when you sit in the deserted corner of the park, the people and their noise at a distance, just the wind among the leaves and you, listening intently in case there was a message in the rustle of the leaves and the steps of a squirrel or a rat or even a bird foraging late among the leaves.
“I have always thought of the sounds of silence as a positive feeling, a description of the small movements and sounds that make up the fabric of silence. … Even if some childhood piece of you is scared, there is something magical in the sounds of the house, the whispers, the knocks, the sighs. This happens too when you sit in the deserted corner of the park… just the wind among the leaves and you, listening intently.”
We miss this silence, living in the midst of noise all the time. Living in a city, living among people, there is always noise around you. There are vehicles, there are people coming back from late shows, who seem to believe you (any people around) want to hear the songs of the movie they had just seen, even the dialogues. The lateness of the hour or the fact that most people would be asleep do not appear to bother them. As for the vehicles that still screech over the roads loudly, the drivers seem to think that only they and their vehicles exist.
In a peaceful place, a place of worship, even loud prayers are an intrusion, ‘a stain upon the silence’. It does not seem to occur to the noisy ones, that just like the encroachment into the personal space of a person is bad manners, an encroachment into the silence around a person is also extremely bad manners. It’s not just in places of worship but any common area that this intrusion occurs. Haven’t you been in a train compartment with people who seem to use their telephone throughout the journey, constantly talking, letting one conversation end just to start another, like chain-smokers. They talk of everything from the curries at home to business matters, for the edification of all the passengers in that enclosed space. To paraphrase Donne, you feel like saying, ‘Hold your tongue and let me live’.
“But silence can also be threatening, because absolute silence is not natural. There are always sounds in nature… When all the small animals around freeze into silence and stillness, you know that they sense danger and threat. Rachel Carson’s path breaking book on ecological disaster was called ‘Silent Spring’ because the season of spring without birdsong shows that something is amiss.”
But silence can also be threatening, because absolute silence is not natural. There are always sounds in nature, small sounds, of water gurgling, waves whispering, leaves touching each other. When there is no sound at all, it is evidence that there is something wrong around you. When all the small animals around freeze into silence and stillness, you know that they sense danger and threat. Rachel Carson’s path breaking book on ecological disaster was called ‘Silent Spring’ because the season of spring without birdsong shows that something is amiss.
This is not in the natural world alone. If a country or a ruler does not permit speech, freedom is in danger. If to speak out is to invite danger and people remain quiet because of that, silence is no longer a blessing, but a threat. But that is only about speaking out, about bearing witness, about not letting silence be imposed on disagreement.
Otherwise, in the world we live in silence is a benison, a blessing. The Bible speaks of the Lord who comes by not in a great wind, not in the earthquake and not in the fire, but after the fire in a sound of silence. I have always found that an attractive thought – of God coming at the end of all the confusion, all the noise, in a plenitude of silence.
