Sunday, February 14

My life with a broken silence...


To be silent is to remain without any communication at the deepest level of oneself. That exercise is very difficult. Silence often echoes into sounds that flutter across the minds and the waves in air. Often, the modern society is so cacophonous that there aren’t any empty rooms where silence can adorn. The principal culprit for this is the advertisement industry that has over driven and arrested every form of sensible communication prevalent in a society.

Previously I would carry a small storybook or a book of verse as I am waiting for my friend’s arrival at the railway station. Today I cannot do it. That slice of silence is all stolen from me by the jarring meaningless advertisements that fill the station air. It is sad that the whole of railway industry is littered with advertisements: not only the railway station, but also the railway-tickets, the railway-cars and the railway -tracks.

A stroll across the street will tell different things to different people: Wear me, Call me, Hear me, Drink me, Eat me, Drive me, Live in me, Live with me...and the list goes on and on. As companies and brands scramble for the empty city spaces for putting forth their invitations, they also stamp out the very last fickle of silence.

The trick is that advertisements host some form of daily ‘information’: calendars, journaling stationery, time-charts, weather-charts, health warnings, bookmarks, traffic signs and much more. The advertisements are often posted next to the mandatory billboards. Hence, I cannot circumvent these advertisements to reach the billboards. Looking at it closely, the advertisements have encroached into my daily living at an astonishing rate...it is everywhere! I believe that today’s society would have hoisted an advertisement on every gain of sand in the seashore, if it were possible! What a pity if that had happened!

As I dwell in the centre of the society, has silence any place in daily living? On the other hand, is my life a life of broken silence? Or, is it that, communication can never take place without compromising a little of silence?
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