Silence

I landed in Heathrow and passed through immigration without a hitch and came out. I was supposed to catch a coach (aka bus) to Euston station and then catch a train to Staffordshire. I found my way to the bus stand just outside the terminal and boarded the bus.

Everything was strange. Whatever I had read and heard about England had not prepared me enough for the place. I was looking for something familiar. What I found was a factory of Brylcream! Unbelievably, the sight comforted me that I was not on an alien planet.

I started observing things around me - the seats of the bus, the glasses of it windows, the very few people on the bus…. In spite of all these things, I was feeling ill at ease. I was wondering what it was. Then I realised that it was the silence.

By this time, the bus had moved from the airport area outside the city to the city proper. There was a fair amount of traffic but no sounds. I had had problems with my ears on the aircraft thanks to the compression and decompression. I panicked as I thought that it had really affected my hearing. Then I tried to sort things out by listening to sounds that I was able to hear and estimate the extent of the damage. To my surprise I could hear the sounds within the bus. I could hear sounds such as the whirr of the blower of the air heater and the noise from the engine located outside the bus at the back. That meant that my hearing was functioning. Ah, that was a relief.

But then why was I not hearing any of the traffic noise - engine noises and horns being honked. Then it dawned on me that I could not hear all those things because there were no such noises.

Being accustomed to the noise of the then ubiquitous Ambassador cars and the incessant honking in India, I was not prepared for the silent traffic of London.

I stayed in England for three months and heard the horn being used only once. A very young cyclist rode on the wrong side of the road and came close to being run over by a car driven by an old man. The old man honked angrily and screamed at the boy – “you will kill yourself!”

That is it, for three months.

PS. I heard that there was a "hornless" day in Bombay recently. Wonder how successful it was. Please let me know, if you do.