Noises

I seem to have a flurry of topics to write on. Expect a lot of posts in a short time.

A couple of days back, I was just messing around with a couple of web designing tutorials from the internet on a dull afternoon. Heavy Alternative Rock music was blaring out from my radio and to add to the bewildering array of noise, yours truly was singing along. Ray was around; he was reading a text book in the middle of this commotion. I asked him why he would be studying when he had a perfectly calm room at the hostel. He said 'Umm… I have to be distracted by something so that I could concentrate on my books.' And I thought I was an expert at dishing out oxymorons. I bow to the king!

This is one of the seemingly endless list of similarities between myself and Ray. There have been so many discovered in the past few months that I am beginning to suspect evil wizardry and black magic at work. Anyway, I too enjoy reading my books when some sort of sound is there in the background. Most of the times, it is music on the radio. I don't mind if it rock, classical or jazz or for that matter, any kind of music. Just that it shouldn't be a talk-show.

Some of the ceiling fans available in India make enough noise to shut out all kind of sounds from outside the room. This is the only reason I love and hate ceiling fans. I love 'em when I need to be distracted from a noise source - read 'my mother, relatives or any unwelcome guest'. I hate 'em when I'm watching TV because they cut out the crispness of the audio stream.

Speaking of irritating sounds, the reason why I hate watching TV at home when Mom and Dad are around is because they seem to specialize in making noises that are amazingly irritating. Wondering why? Get a load of this -- Every night, my folks watch a hopelessly shallow Tamil soap called 'Annamalai'. Everything about the soap is shallow; the story, acting, script and even the sound track. Since they both are busy watching this, no unwelcome noises are heard and it is a perfect environment for watching TV.

Right after that, it is the time for sitcoms which I love watching. I go downstairs and switch on the TV. Mom and Dad get out of the couch and do these;

• Dad
  
  
  
  • Goes to his bedroom and turns on the radio moderately loud. A classical western concert is usually being played. The recording is poor and the radio is awful in sound reproduction.
  
  
  • Takes up his 'mridangam' (which by the way is a percussion instrument used in Eastern Classical music) and plays along with this. Of course, I should be enjoying this as I like all kinds of music. But what can I do if what he plays seems out-of-sync and too damn repetitive.
  
  
  
  


• Mom
  
  
  
  • Goes to the kitchen and washes the dishes or does something noisy. Astonishing that she fails to realize that it is bloody irritating.
  
  
  • Talks on the phone to one of my aunts over the phone. Very loud. Conversation topics range from ordinary gossip, putting down other aunts, discussions about why the world should be coming to an end and why fate has been so cruel to them.
  
  
  
  


• Both
  
  
  
  • If they both have nothing to do, they talk about things like how bad the other relatives are, why the word should be coming to an end, why fate has been so cruel to my mother, why my Dad's body should be itching at 11 O' Clock in the night etc.
  
  
  
  

You must be thinking why I can't ignore these things. I don't know why. I used to be able to during my childhood. But right now, I just seem to unable to, however hard I try. That is why I can't quite hope to watch a movie at home on the telly unless my folks are away or are sleeping. This is one big reason why I dig movie-halls. This also explains why I paid to watch "Gangs of New York" in a cinema yesterday when it was being shown thrice weekly in one of the movie channels.