Seeking Silence

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence." -Ansel Adams

There is an utter melancholic feeling that engrosses my mind when I am standing at a railway station, amidst the chaotic atmosphere the place resonates with, I try to discover a sense of silence, a split second of peace, extracted through the disarray, and the only way to meet that simple yet complicated moment is to simply see the surroundings, go through the nostalgia of thoughts running in my mind, and cross the plethora of images spawning in my head, and seek silence.

There isn’t any specific rationale behind my search for silence and peace, silence is beautiful, and in the middle of this chaos, which I surround myself with, it seemed more seductive. 

The scene at regular small town railway stations are not quite parallel to one’s I grew up imagining through Ruskin Bond’s short stories, perhaps set in a much diverse time, where one doesn’t need to put an effort to get a moment of silence. The demon shaped engine with the thunderous honking sound expressing a strong sense of rage and ordering people to move on and get inside the train, I think of it as a metaphor, commanding people to move on in life too through a new journey. 

The tea vendor’s, selling the worst tea that you’re ever going to taste, oil smudged snacks being catered around every corner, B-grade magazine with a picture of girl displaying her cleavage to grab men's attention, which are desperate for something to cling on before embarking on their journey. A reek of phenol suddenly scatters on the platform, indicative of the fact that railway cleaning staff has come on time for their duties. Railway stations have gone a drastic change with times, there aren’t any coin operated weighing checking machines around anymore, where one simply inserted a one rupee coin and stood straight for few seconds and got a small yet reasonably thick brown color chit showing their weight in bold black color, the upper part of the machine had a round display with a colored wheel inside it. Upon placing the coin into the machine, the wheel rotated for few seconds, creating a dramatic scenario, and moment later, the chit used to emerge from the machine with the person’s weight printed on it. The wheel even had small bulbs glowing with bright colors that made the weight checking process more fascinating for me. I recall many instances where i used to excitedly go and check my weight and always came back furiously, tearing the chit and started questioning the machine for its lack of authenticity.

Another interesting feature of railway station was fortune-teller machine, based on the same template as the coin weighing machine but in place of a person’s weight, the machine spat the thick small brown color chit with day’s fortune printed on it. It was a clever way of indulging a person’s attention into the rubbish printed on the chit as they embark on their journey. 

There is certain yet an unknown distinctive ambiance of a railway station, and that uniqueness is created by the thousands of people communicating through the railway, hundreds of people sleeping inside the waiting rooms, on the platforms, queuing up at four in the morning to get their tickets, several groups of people rushing towards the general compartment to fit in their body for the journey. Everyone has their own story, some share, some prefer to stay quiet, people get acquainted with strangers, hear their stories, share stories of themselves, talk about politics and more. By the time, journey ends, a bond is formed, which I would like to term as a ‘Railway Bond’. 

The moment of silence knocks the door of my mind, when a train leaves the platform, the crowd scatters away from the platform, the vendors go back to their bases, and waits for the next train to arrive, I see a pattern, and in that pattern, there is a consistent gap existing between the arrivals of different trains on the platform. This is the point where the silence seduces my mind into its shell.

Silence is therapeutic, it is omnipresent yet difficult to identify. It gives a sense of freedom to the mind to unravel the chain of complicated thoughts; it is constructive in nature, lending all the necessary tools to erect a clear picture in your mind.

 

Photo by Lukasz Saczek on Unsplash

I travel around with the shell of silence and let the voice around it subdue the noise made in my mind.