Empty Vessels ....

"Dad, what’s that noise?"

"It’s the door creaking"

"Dad, what’s that noise"

"It’s the doorbell."

"Dad, what’s that noise?"

"It’s the bin collector."

 

“Dad, what’s that noise?” – That will be amongst my prominent memories from your trip to India when you were two and a half years. This was your third trip to my motherland but your first with a decent enough cognisance to notice the noise and wonder about it. I don't think though you would even remember the question or the various seemingly weird answers to be better prepared on your next visit to India.

"Dad what’s that noise?"

"It’s the drums. Someone is about to get married later today. "

"Dad, what’s that noise?"

"That’s the TV. They are ‘discussing’ a political issue live. "

"Dad, what’s that noise?"

"Someone is honking the horn in their car. That’s how they drive here as everyone has the right of way everywhere, at any time."

Apparently, you would have neither understood a few of these answers, nor heard the disappointment in my voice nor even grasped the other silent noises that I was experiencing day in and day out.

The silent but much more deafening noises of bias, of misdirected, baseless and uninvited opinions and most of the times noises of plain and simple confusion. Everyone seemingly more interested in making up excuses for not doing something than just getting it done. To make matters worse, my erstwhile countrymen (and women) seem to have found in social media and smartphones the proverbial sword in a monkey's hand. Albeit a much more deadly one. Happily spreading along their biases and ill-informed opinions like plague.  

 

Dear daughter, by the time you get to read and comprehend this note, I hope society would have realised that evolution had a reason to limit sight, sound and other senses to a being’s physical entity and not be omnipresent. More importantly, I hope we as parents would have imparted enough wisdom for you to distinguish your  voice of your conscience and of those who care for you from the meaning laden, agenda driven noises around you.

It is already difficult and near impossible for people in 2016 to have a quiet moment with themselves and their own thoughts. Everyone is busy shouting their own sales pitch on some form of media - 

“Look at me, I’m so talented”

“Look at me, I’m rich”

“Look at me, I’m so simple”

“Look at me, I got the best husband/wife/son/daughter”

“Look at me, my religion is the best”

Even “Look at me, I don’t ask anybody to look at me so I have found alternative means of showing off”

The sales pitches exist everywhere in this globally socially connected world. I find the shrillness of these noises is higher in India and amongst Indians. Maybe it is because we grow up in an overcrowded society where any voice has to be loud enough to have a standing chance of being noticed before it is heard and understood.  

Personally, I judge people by the pitch of noises they make. Like the proverbial vessels, I believe the empty ones make more noise. As a corollary, the more noise they make, the lesser are the chances of them being at peace with themselves and their surroundings. Hence the craving for attention.

Ironically, my homeland India - often seen as the home of inner peace, is  a place where it is increasingly rare for people to be at inner peace with themselves. Hence the loud confusing noises that each of us indulge in. 

To add to the irony, your homeland, the west in general, is where your parents have had the best chance to find their own self. That would be true for quite a few other Indians around us as well. Does not mean we are all already at peace with ourselves but at least we are not as loud or as confused in ourselves as we were back in India. 
However, the lessons are still there in my Homeland if one cares to learn them. One of them is that you should never forget where your roots are. ( At this point I have a collection of 300+ books full of such 'good Indian values' waiting for you to read. Hope you would have read them all by now J)  

Our roots were humble in a simpler time in maybe a not so simple India. As they say, you could take an Indian out of India but you would never get India out of an Indian. Proud or not, your parents would forever be Indians at their heart. I would try and avoid confrontations between the Indian in me and the western in you. Let’s hope you can hear the concern in my voice and differentiate it from the noise all around.