Silence, stillness

When I take stock from way back in my childhood, what I have totally unlearned and now I have to make a conscious effort to relearn is to slip into and handle long silences. I constantly reach for my phone for messages or try to connect in some manner.

Summer vacations meant trips to the ancestral home - hours and hours of silence only interrupted by tropical birdcalls or the sound of the approaching rain clouds[I can't quite translate this from the vernacular malayalam, mazha irachil]. Chores were a pleasure, be it joining the folks collecting rubber milk or making rubber sheets, even harvesting peppercorns, you'd run across a snake or two and scorpions.

Now I actually wonder if there will be a generation after me that will enjoy such stillness.