The Sound of Silence
Paper doors,
Opened, wobbled and closed.
The populace from down the road
Had flocked, with spirit composed.
Director, shouted orders
Through the bullhorn, declaim.
Or just babbled instructions
Sneaking through the filthy frame.
Uncle Sahu was hammering sets
For the next production plan.
Had brought his diligent boy
To show all the big names within his span.
Sun was shimmery that evening,
Like Sahu’s boy’s eyes over the contrast.
As silhouettes emerged from vanity vans
Shadowing shimmer with their cast.
Silence reigned here,
Like a tiny theatre for the deaf.
The last voice on the street reduced
To a whisper, then shunned, as if in some clef.
No nightingale cooed
All birds so still, didn’t sing.
Only the film shimmering out a disc
Thinner than sound did cling.
Characters started moving
Not a hiss, not a mutter.
Not even a cry, the dim world of silence
Was lighted with expressions under the shutter.
This poem was written in collaboration with Akash Mani, Abhishek Ramachandran and Antony Terence.
