Silent Sounds and Sulphurous Smells

Mannvaasanai

It has been thundering for quite some time now. But winds were not fierce enough to rattle the windows. After 40 minutes since the first thunder rolled down, sky has opened up, it is pouring and with the first drops of holy union, came manvaasanai.

Just 5 minutes before, the sulphurous-phosphorus smell of the match stick being struck for the evening lamp in the next room assailed my nostrils and thank god immediately God sent me manvaasanai to compensate. The good thing about gusts of wind before rains is that the mangoes just fall down. We don't have to strain and arrange some help outside.

Rain droplets are falling on my face, through the window, but am concerned about the laptop now. Once I left a water soaked scarf with my laptop during a trip and experienced the shock of my life, the moment, I switched it on back home. When i told the repair guy that am getting mild shocks, he replied, it should not be mild, it is full charge that is flowing from the socket thanks to the failed adaptor. Even now, after repairing, i experience mild shocks whenever i touch the metallic ends underneath or by the sides of the laptop, but it is really mild.

Want to learn birdspeak

Be it 3:30 am or 3:30 pm or some random afternoon post lunch, the moment I enter bedroom from the hall, these babblers create such a ruckus. I have never bothered about the cawing of crows, but these babblers seem to have such an important meeting - all bursting to say everything at once. I wish I could understand what they are speaking. And the moment, I try hard to decipher, they grow silent suddenly and disappear the way they came. I don't quite remember which purana mentioned, that there were parrots or birds who could recite Vedas.

Another one is the lone call at night. It sounds like cuckoo but it is definitely not cuckoo. It just calls so languorously starting typically around 10 pm and goes on even beyond midnight. At times even at 4 am. Sometimes, I hear more than one bird calling. Wish Salim Ali was there to guide me about these birds.

Vandu

It would have measured 3 cm by length and 2+ cm by breadth… a thick, black mean looking vandu (kind of large non hairy fully black bumblebee). It was buzzing in vain by the window pane and at last found its way out past the curtains. Now that the vandu left, there is this small bee to continue the incessant buzzing. It has fancied the tube light and now the two yellow wires. These bees and their tube light and their buzzing while the wall clock seconds tick by so loudly. I wonder if there can ever be true silence.