In the days of lockdown, we could hear birds tweeting in the loudest pitch. My difficulty is that having lived in a noisy environment, I could not make out the difference between them. The other day, I saw a black bird diving in the air, down to our lawn and I shouted to my wife, "Look, look, how the crow is diving down."
She shot me a look and told me that it was not a crow but a hawk and added that crows don’t dive down but hawks do. They can spot their prey from a long distance. I am also taking lessons to differentiate between the delicate noises that sparrows make and loud ones that koels make. I know that I will fail the test in a matter of days when the noise is back.
Lockdown also gave me the ability to invade the privacy of our neighbours. When I hear a grinder in action, I know that coconut chutney is being made and as I am walking around, I can smell dosas and my mouth begins to water.
One morning, I was on my walk, when I smelt butter and thought the neighbour's cook was most likely making bene dosa. I even know the names of their helpers because I can hear the shouts, "Raghu, oota barsi" (Raghu, serve food). Basvaraj, Manjunath and Shankar are other helpers in the neighbourhood.
As for relationships, these come by and large in four categories. The fighting category when the husband shouts and the wife replies, "stop this nonsense otherwise I will leave for my parent’s place once the lockdown is lifted. I have had enough of this nonsense." The second category is the couple in which the wife is extremely resilient. The husband shouts and the wife continues to play on the piano regardless of the constant shouting. The third is the loving category, I hear the wife ask the husband what he would like for breakfast and the husband replies that whatever you make for yourself is okay with me. Then, there are couples that maintain noble silence. You don’t hear a word even when they are standing on their balcony. I was listing these categories to my wife and asked her which category she thought we belonged to. Her reply took me by surprise when she replied we don’t belong any of these categories. We are two separate pillars under the same roof. I sighed.