Can You Hear Silence? -- Part II

The rumblings of trucks fade. The whistling of a train is heard in the distance. The thought of hearing silence still drums my mind. My eyes close with a heavy burden. Will I ever hear silence one day?

The milk vans start. The workers, working on yet another building being built opposite our house, are not doing much. The rain last night made the things that they work with wet, I don't think they are going build more of the building today.

The making of the building started a long time ago. Everyday I see a few men carry shovels on their shoulders. And some of the women are just carrying long cloths in their hands, which they later fix on their heads to help them balance containers of cements, bricks and all the other weird stuff that they take upstairs. There are a few children also with them. I wonder what they do. But whenever I am at home, I always see that they are playing with the rocks kept near the building.

I get up to the sounds of the rumbling trucks and the hooting of trains. Why can’t I get up to the sweet chirping of birds? Will I ever get up to the chirping of birds?

“Rashmi. Chhaya. Get up, or else you’ll miss the bus again,” Mummy warned, pulling off the covers.
I get up quickly, almost jumping off the bed, and go out to the living room for a rain check. It had rained hard all last night. If we are lucky, again, we might not have to go to school today.
“Do we have to go to school, Papa? Is the road flooded?” I queried.
“No flood,” he says as he goes through the newspaper.
Our routine day starts. First me and Rashmi agrue about who is going to go to the bathroom first to take a bath. And like usual, she wins. I hate it when she wins. I never get to go to take a bath first. Everytime I have to fill the buckets before coming out. Then putting on the school uniform and socks and shoes. Rashmi is constantly shouting at me as she dresses me.
"When will you learn to put on ur own shirt, skirt," she keeps whispering loudly as she buttons my shirt.
"Little brat. Can't do anything yourself can you," she continued now as she was fixing the knot on my tie.
"At least I know how to tie my shoelaces," I said in defense.
"Yah, and that makes you the brightest girl around, right," she snapped back at me.
And as I struggle to tie my left shoe shoelace, both of us rush for the table for breakfast. And like everyday since I can remember, there are two toasts with strawberry jam and a glass of milk placed in the front of my chair. Same for Rashmi.
"Don't forget to take your vitamins," Mummy shouts from the kitchen.
As soon as she says, both of us take the tablets kept on the table and put them in our pockets. They are the only secret between me and Rashmi.
"Rakesh, your tea is getting cold. Don't tell me to reheat it later, I don't have time for things like that everyday," Mummy calls out to Papa from the kitchen.
We go to school, and come back home. Eat something. Then Rashmi goes to her tuitions. She comes back and starts acting funny with Ravi, again. They both stand outside his house and talk. They keep talking, not noticing anything aroung them. And in between she keeps laughing and giggling.
Mummy comes back from work. Hopefully, she won’t be looking like an angry ghost, as she usually does. Hopefully she’ll make us something nice to eat. Um…I’ll tell her to make samosas, we haven’t had them for a long time. And I don’t want to go to the shop downstairs. The gaint-like-man behind the counter scares me. He never says anything. He only hands the samosas. He is so big and fat that I think that he must be sneaking the samosas and eating them. Plus Mummy makes them better. But she looks very tired. Mummy works so hard that she has no time for us. I don’t like that. Megha is so lucky. Her mom makes what Megha wants. And she is home to look after Megha and her sister.
After that Megha and I go to play in the corridors. It’s fun playing with everyone. Megha cheated yesterday. She didn’t close her eyes when she was counting.
“Rashmi Didi, want to come and play with us?” I asked.
“I don’t play with small kids,” she replied with her back still facing me.
I only asked so that she would cheer up a bit. She was fighting with Mummy yesterday, yet again. But she shouldn’t have fought with Mummy.

Papa is still not home. He was late yesterday. And the day before. He was late all week. And even the days before that. I can’t remember all the days he was late. To think about it, I can’t recall the days that he comes in early or by dinner time. And he is late again today. Can’t he come early? Megha’s papa is always home by 5 o’clock. I know Papa works very hard, but…he has to think about Mummy also. And Rashmi. And me. He has to think about all of us.

Everytime he is late, Mummy and Rashmi fight. And Mummy scolds me for watching TV and having dinner. But what do I do? Everything is really quite at home when he is not there. And Mummy is trying to do everything. If something is broke, like the clock yesterday, she will try and fix it. And Mummy doesn't eat until Papa comes. And she doesn't like watching TV, I don't know why, because I love it. It is so cool. They show so many interesting things on TV.

The only time we see him is in the morning, with his face dug into the morning paper. He also, like Mummy, has no time for us. Rashmi and I hardly get to see him. He also started working on Sundays for the past eight Sundays. And in school we are taught that Sundays are family days. Everyone in the building goes out to the parks, cinemas and god knows which other places. We are the only ones left behind here.

We were having dinner when Rashmi started arguing with Mummy again. Or maybe Mummy started first.
“What were you doing with Ravi outside, I’ve told you before also not to talk to him,” Mummy warned Rashmi.
“God, you have a problem with everything I do. Now I can’t even talk to my friend,” she snapped back at Mummy.
“I know what type of friend he is,” Mummy said.
“You don’t know anything. And why would you even care. You and Papa don’t care about me. Leave me, you don’t even care about Chhaya. All you care about is your jobs and money,” she shouted and slammed the spoon down.
“Rashmi! Stop arguing and eat your food. This girl, I tell you, she has lost all her senses. Wait. You just wait. Wait till I tell your father. Yah, I won’t do anything, I’ll let him handle you. He can very well do it,” she said almost talking to herself.
Rashmi left the table and went to sleep in her room, without eating dinner.
And then there was silence. Wait a minute, was that silence. Didn’t seem like it. I could still hear the trucks, trains and traffic outside. Was Rashmi hearing it? Can anyone ever hear silence?
Mummy quickly put me to sleep. Papa came late again today. And he even fought with Mummy…again. Actually as usual.
I can’t fall asleep. Will Rashmi be asleep yet? She came in here quite sometime back. Maybe. Maybe not. Let me check.
I sit up on my bed. Look left, look right. Look out the window, I can still see the trucks and traffic outside. Can’t see the train, but I’m sure it’s about to come. It always comes at this time.
“Chhaya…what are you doing? Go to sleep. Tomorrow is not Sunday, you have to get up early,” she told me.
I couldn’t see her. Not because she had her back to me. She did. But I couldn’t even see her back. It was too dark. I knew what I had to do.
I just had to wait a little longer and stare somewhere in the dark. And then in a few seconds, I’ll be able to see her. Maybe even her face. Because by then she would have turned around. And my eyes will also get better. I discovered this long time ago. The art of seeing in the dark. Hmm. Sounds good: The Art of Seeing In the Dark by Chhaya Varma. My first book. Good good. And plus I like writing. I can write 4 good sentences. That is a lot. The best in class. I wrote even better sentences than Megha. She cannot write good sentences.
“Didi, you did not eat nah? Are you hungry?” I asked her, still trying to see in the dark.
“No Chhaya, just go to sleep,” she replied softly.
“No, but…” I said even softer.
I didn’t say anything after that. I didn’t feel the need to. I could see now. I got up and went to the study table. I was sure in my heart that it wasn’t there. It couldn’t have been. She hadn’t eaten since lunch that day. But then, this happens many times.
I don’t like it whenever Mummy and Didi fight. I don’t like it whenever Mummy and Papa also fight. I don’t like it. It is so bad. Everyone is always shouting. And they are always shouting at each other at the same time. That is so dumb. They shout at each other and they can’t even hear each other.
But it is better than the fighting we have. Me and Megha fight a lot in school and when we play at home. Sometimes she cheats. And I don’t like it. So I tell her and then she shouts at me telling me that I am a cheater. But I do not cheat. At least not all the time. And then she cries and hits me. She pinches me also. And hits me on my face.

A few days back we were playing in school during lunch break. Anita wanted to do something inside the classroom that day. She cannot walk properly. I don’t know why, I guess she has some problem with her leg.
It is not there. She has no leg. At first when I saw that I thought it was weird because I did not know where it was. I mean she was the first person that I saw that it did not have a leg. Everyone else had two legs. She walked on some sort of sticks. Two of them. She left them outside the classroom. So in class whenever we have Story Time, she is carried by our teacher. She is always the last one to come to the carpet area. But there are always 3 pillows saved for her. Not fair, I sometimes only get 2.
But she is a nice girl. She always asks me if I want to share her lunch with her. Her mother sends aloo puri most of the times. And the other times she brings good delicacies that her mother makes.
Mummy never makes them. She has no time to make them. So I get bread and jam everyday in my lunchbox. Sometimes bread and butter. But nothing else.
Anita is the only one who asks me to share her lunch with her. No one else asks me. Not even Megha. Megha never asks me if I want her lunch. She knows that I don’t like what I get in my lunch box, but still she never asks.
She is my best friend, but not my best friend. She is my best friend because she lives in the same building as I do, and she goes to the same school as I do. She plays at the same park as I do. We do everything together. But sometimes I don’t like her.

But I don’t understand why Didi keeps shouting at Mummy. She should not do that. She is younger than Mummy. I remember Grandma telling me not to shout at elder people.

“Always remember Chhaya, a small and sweet girl like you should never shout at older people,” she repeated once again.
“If you shout and scream at your Mummy or Papa then monsters will come to your room while you are sleeping and eat your ears,” she would tell me whenever we went to visit them during vacations.
Didi always listens to what Grandma says. But not to what Mummy says. Didi likes Grandma more. She used to spend a lot of time with Grandma alone when we were there. They would just be in Grandma’s room talking and talking all day long.
The room was big. Bigger than my room here. Bigger than Mummy and Papa’s room also. And there was a big bed in the middle. With a clean, white mosquito net hanging from the top. The bed was very old I think. Whenever you sit on it, it moves the whole bed. The bedsheets were also white. But sometimes Grandma puts the one with blue flowers that Mummy gave her.
There was a table full of medicines on the right. There were bottles, big, small, fat; all kinds of bottles. And there were many injections also. Grandma had to put injection to herself everyday. I don’t like injections. They hurt a lot. I always cry when Doctor Uncle has to put injection on me. I don’t think all the medicines were Grandma’s though, some were also for Grandpa. They both took many medicines.

I miss Grandma. I want to go to visit them again, but Papa said that we will not be able to go anywhere for vacations this time. He said that he and Mummy had a lot of work to do. He said there was no time.

Mummy also should not shout so much at Didi. Maybe Mummy does not know that after Didi goes back to the room, she is always crying. I always ask, “What happened, Didi?” But she doesn’t tell me anything. She just keeps on crying.

“What happened Didi?” I asked again, not expecting an answer from her as usual.
She didn’t reply, like I had predicted. She got up and came down from her bed. We had a bunk bed our room, she slept on the top bed. She came down and wrapped me in her arms. I did not understand. Why was she hugging me?
“When you grow up, never become like me. Deal?” she told half sobbing.
“But you are not bad. You just shout at Mummy sometimes. That is just one bad thing. Everything is good,” I replied.
“No, you just don’t become like me,” she told me again.
“Ok,” I said.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked again, thinking it was the right time.
She nodded.
“Can you hear silence?” I asked.
“No. No one can. Silence cannot be heard. And what are you doing asking such philosophical questions anyways. Plan to write your own book someday, huh?” she told me in a more light tone.
I didn’t say anything to her.
“Ok, no Sunday tomorrow, go to sleep now,” she ordered.
“Ok, goodnight,” I said.
She went up to her bed and I went to mine. As I put my head on the pillow, I start thinking again about silence.
Grandma can hear it. Mummy can't hear it. Didi can’t hear the silence. Will I ever be able to hear it?