Attack of the Noise Terror Squad

SILENCE!
Professor Dumbledore hollers to a roomful of young, unruly, freckle-faced future wizards.

Enjoy the Silence…
Exhorts Depeche Mode.

Silence… that elusive silence! Silence… my current quest for the Holy Grail. Silence… is it too much to ask for? I hate to bring myself to face this bitter truth but, yes, it is way too much to ask for.

With 99.9 per cent of the project I’m currently working on having been completed, I no longer need to go through Monday Morning Blues. I can work from home for a better part of the week -- a glorious arrangement envied deeply by Crazy P.

So, I decide to stay home on Monday and curl into bed with Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. But things don’t always go as planned and, like it or not, there are at least two spoilsports for one almost-fortunate person in this world.

So there I was, ready to take a stroll around Frankie’s Sin City when a sudden and confusing disagreeable sound ruins my plans for the day. It takes only a peek out of my bedroom window to realise that a group of extremely vocally challenged beings have united to unleash terror upon the world [or at least the part of Dilli I live in] under the pretext of singing bhajans. [Just a thought -- why is it that every time it’s only the ones who can’t sing insist on singing the loudest during such ceremonies?] Unsynchronised cymbals and drum beats add to the cacophony, threatening to blast my eardrums to kingdom come.

To drown out the noise, I turn on the music at full decibel. I don’t even bother to check which playlist is playing on winamp. I just need some sound to block out the noise outside. Any sound -- barring the one generated outside -- will do; I’m not in a position to be choosy. A few minutes of respite…

And then, the lights go out, followed promptly by that list playing on winamp. And the noise, the cymbals and drums come rushing into my head.

SILENCE!
My brain screams, a scream unheard by the most vocally challenged devotees. The baying continues, so does the unsynchronised clanging of cymbals and drum beats, infiltrating my space, violating my senses.

I lose my sanity for the next many hours, interrupted only for a few minutes by a phone call from the office. And during my hours of insanity, I volunteer to lend my help in ensuring the completion of a project -- anything to stay away from this madness.

After the devotees have [finally!] left, cymbals are packed and drums whisked away, some semblance to normalcy returns, and so does my sanity. It’s then I curse the noise terrorists for my just-around-the-corner Tuesday Morning Blues.