Life Notes
This is my entry for the Morningside College Essay Competition. I am grateful to have won the competition with it.
Our brains are constantly chronicling life through five distinct channels - sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. But memory is selective because it only captures fragments of our sensory storm. Of all these sensory imprints, it's the acoustic memories that seem to echo longest in my chambers of recollection. Each sound is a key that unlocks not just the memory of the noise itself but the entire moment in which it existed.
Thus, when I close my eyes and think of childhood, it is not the images that come but the sounds. These ghosts arrive uninvited, and they carry with them entire worlds of context and emotion. Thinking of my father's gentle "Neha? I'm home!" resurrects not just his voice, but our brown door framing his dark blue shirt, my joy at his arrival mingled with sudden panic over forgotten chores. In that moment lives the scent of his cologne, the race to his embrace, and my brother and I competing to share our day's stories.
Scientists tell us that sensory memories last mere milliseconds as fleeting impressions that fade unless our attention anchors them into something more permanent. But some sounds demand attention without reason; they carve themselves so deeply into our consciousness that they become part of our inner landscape. Let me take you through some of the chapters in my life that have been randomly marked by these acoustic bookmarks.
In Gurgaon, electrical signals from sounds moved differently than they do here. The walls were thick, we were close to the ground, but somehow every noise found its way through. Morning began with the pressure cooker's whistle, four sharp whistles that meant rajma or chole were on the way, and my mother’s favourite bhajan. I used to be bothered by the bhajans, but later I realized how it made me feel. As the house filled with positivity, steel utensils would clang against each other in the kitchen. It created a metallic hypnotic orchestra that meant comfort and home.
From outside, the street vendors' calls formed our daily soundtrack: the vegetable seller's singsong announcement of fresh potatoes, tomatoes, and the seasonal vegetable, the neighboring-village’s farmer who would send his son to ring our bell which became my cue to rush down with two vessels for fresh cow’s milk, the evening ice cream man's distinctive horn that had my brother sprinting to call mama for cash. When I think of the passage of time, even in a day, I think of how time was marked by these sound-stamps instead of clocks. You would know it is 4:00 pm when the ice cream vendor came, and 7:00 pm when the milkman arrived.
Have you ever stolen something? I have, and it was memorable. My brother and I became thieves of teenager-y whispers. Pressed against the door's cool wood, we would eavesdrop on my sister’s daily secret phone call with her boyfriend. Her laughter, so syrupy and unfamiliar (and funny to us), would seep through the cracks as I motioned silently at my brother to take notes, and he scribbled furiously. I say furiously because I remember the sound of his pencil on my paper. We carefully harvested these secrets. Each word was meticulously catalogued in our Reporting Book, and all we asked for ransom from her was salt-kissed fries and premium 20-rupee chocolate. A fair deal if you ask me.
When the power went out, as it often did, the sudden silence would be broken by the collective groan of aunties in our building. The ceiling fans would slow to a stop, and we would begin to hear the smallest of things, such as the various birds outside and our deep breaths. Sometimes we would go stand in the shower until we heard the coughing of the generator motoring on.
Soon thereafter, a different kind of sound entered our lives. The beeping of hospital monitors, the squeak of nurses' shoes on polished floors, the whispered consultations outside my father's room… The landscape of illness has its own symphony, its own tones, and a painful recollection that I feel more in my heart than my brain. Time was marked by the sound of the pulse oximeter becoming as familiar as my mother's bhajans had once been. Its steady beeps were both tormenting and comforting; each electronic pulse was a reminder of illness, yet its very persistence meant that his heart was still beating. That is why I found myself dreading the sound and praying for it in the same breath, I knew that its silence would bring a peace I was not ready to accept. When that silence eventually and suddenly came, it stretched across continents and was broken only by the empty roar of airplane engines descending into Hong Kong.
If I listen very closely, I can still hear the silence at this very moment.
The transition to Hong Kong came with its own soundscape, so different it felt like learning a new language (which is both a symbol and a fact). The apartment buildings were taller and the spaces between them narrower. The loud coolers in India now replaced by the air conditioners which hum silently. The trains in India used to roar, announcing themselves with pride, while the trains here come gently.
My high school classroom was my first experience of peace within the noise. Twenty teenagers speaking at once, their Cantonese rising and falling like ocean waves, but to my ears it was all white noise. I learned to float in this acoustic limbo which was punctuated only by the occasional word I recognized. "Ngo" (I) and "lei" (you) became little lifeboats in this sea of sound. Though they were brief, they left me triumphant for the day.
An "Om" found me later, during my university years, when the cacophony of life-academic pressure, family worry, career dilemmas-became too much. During my yoga practice I discovered that sound could come from within, that it could resonate through bone and tissue until my whole body became an instrument, a vessel. My mother resonated with this too. In fact, it is due to her that I ever started my practice.
Sometimes, during video calls with mum, I could hear how empty the apartment felt, how her voice echoed slightly where it once had to compete with three children's and one father’s chaos (a sound I would hate because it disrupted my studies, now I yearn to hear it again). The pressure cooker still whistles at home, but only for two now. There is a loud silence… It lies in the space where my father's evening cough used to be. The missing sound of TV shows that once played in the background. The gap where my sister's outburst should be.
There are new sounds. My mother’s iPad playing Western TV shows she has now discovered, it is a proud moment indeed because once upon a time, English was just murmur to her. New sounds describing home… My brother’s iPad playing anime shows, the rice cooker’s electronic pings, my mother’s gentle chuckle when I tell her about my love life, then insane roars of laughter when I would tell her a funny story (this is my most favorite sound in the world), my brother’s “but when did I ask?” jokes. Nothing remains the same, everything changes, and though this change is different, I love it still.
As you know, there was a time when I felt an endless void inside me. It was a deafening silence that echoed despite a life that otherwise seemed to shine. Then I found my best friend. First came a nervous laugh during Transformers, it is the movie forever etched as the backdrop to his surprising confession. Slowly, the silence you could only find if you dipped your head deep into the well in my heart started transforming into something louder, more alive. Heartfelt laughter that bubbled up unexpectedly, and even some quiet tears as I finally acknowledged the echoes of my past. I found myself resting my head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat. It was a steady rhythm, one that my mother, too, was grateful for because, for a long time, she had yearned to hear me laugh again. My inner world was no longer mute but a vibrant soundscape of laughter, whispers, and the irreplaceable sound of a loving heart!
These sound-filled moments are just fragments of my story, bookmarks in a life that keeps turning pages. As my university years, filled with an orchestra of sounds I will forever be grateful for, draw to a close, I find myself wondering what sounds will fill the next chapter. Life has taught me that change is the only constant, and change brings with it new rhythms and melodies. The same way my mother's bhajans gave way to hospital beeps, then emptiness transformed into the sound of ringing laughter, I know these familiar campus echoes will soon become memories. But I’m not scared. I am both nostalgic and curious. As these familiar sounds fade, new ones wait to be discovered. Isn’t that the beauty of life, though? It never truly falls silent, only transforms, and in doing so it creates space to experience new notes. Sometimes, the most beautiful melodies are the ones we haven’t heard yet.
