Listening to Silence

Long back, I was talking to a friend discussing a poem whose few lines I suddenly wrote one silent evening. He read it aloud, I heard it again and we simply laughed at the idea.

Meditating.
(At Leh Ladakh, Photo: Abhijit Datey)

“Have you ever talked to silence?

It wanders besides you

Never stops you

Never asks you

Still dominates the whole air, 

Still....... Just stays there! ” 

- Abhijit Datey (26.03.06) 

Could we acknowledge the existence of silence? It is just mere absence of sound. I argued that sounds are never absent. When you do not wish to talk, there are sounds of people around you and when you are completely lonely, it is your mind which does the talking. So actually listening to silence, means listening to your own self. Listening to your own voice from inside is something most useful, but yet most difficult exercise to pursue in life. I talk to people and they say, “It is so much chaos!, there are voices everywhere and it seems we are lost in them”. At last, the poem got completed, and was not from my best written pieces. The idea was completely forgotten after sometime. 

After few months in April 2007, I was looking forward to a great Architectural internship, something that would give me a revelation of what Architecture is all about. Like a striking light to fall on me and turn me from an Architecture novice to a full fledged Architect. I had decided to wander in different directions to look for internships, and those few pages of resume and portfolio were sent in different directions of India to find attention. One such trip took me to Pondicherry with a bunch of friends. A city, whose one part was lost in a french colonial past. There, we met him and he was introduced to us as “Uncle Maurice”. He taught french in the French School, under Aurobindo Ashram, and was also devoted to it. We visited his small and comfortable apartment which was beautifully decorated with intricate things. Our houses keep so much of us in their small corners. His house was no different, on one side was a small and cozy sitting corner, a showcase of beautiful things collected from everywhere, on the other side of the room was a stack of adult diapers hinting prolonged illness of a dear one. 

It was a dull evening, I was disheartened by what I saw and faced in Auroville. The day was filled with meeting few good and also irritating people. In the evening I decided to stay in his flat until others went to fetch some food. It was past sunset, he was silent and calm, and sea winds were strong. He opened all the windows and sat on the low bed. The next moment, he closed his eyes, sat in padmasana and went into deep meditation. 

“It happens some day,

You wander besides the silence. 

Then it heals you.......

Reveals the truths from your heart......”

- Abhijit Datey (26.03.06) 

All of a sudden, I realized that there was silence everywhere. No sounds except winds flowing through his apartment, and a slow tinkling of sonorous wind chimes. It was nothing less than divine. He sat there silent, aloof, cut off from the world, lost in his inner space. I was lost within me, reflecting, thinking and understanding my own actions. For an hour, both of us talked to our own self. I experienced silence, and it was enriching and thought-provoking. The doorbell rang. Everyone was back, the chatter continued, but a small portion of that time remained and it is still intact in my memories. Since then, I know that silence has all the answers we seek, the need is create it, and to lose yourself in it.

Endlessly I roam
My inner wilderness

Picking moments
From life’s grays
And browns –

Reminiscing,
Reflecting,
Reacting
…to being alive!

The rustle of dry twigs
Under my bare feet

Far out,
On the burnt hillside
A forest fire glows…

-Deepti Naval (2004) “Black Wind”