The early morning lusty call is the kokkarakko-kko of the cockerel heralding the birth of another joyous day. Subramanya Bharathi, the mystic Mahakavi sang, pozhudhu pularndhadhu naam seidha thavaththal metaphorizing the bright sunrise as the Great Light to drive out the darkness of ignorance.
This rooster on its inviolable duty would elongate its frame vertically by inches to pack and throw out its singular musical call with pith and vigour. Other birds, not so audibly endowed, would start chirping, chirruping, warbling and tweeting, the cuckoo among them giving out long repetitive fluting whistles of joy, as if performing for a voice test. To fill up the pauses, or for effect of relief, the crows would, cluster together, calling their brethren to congregate and sound their caw, caw and caw in raucous chorus. Parrots in alluring flashes of green and red would squawk, gurgle or trill in jubilation, will fly with whirringfeathers, from one frond to the other in pairs.
A cow in the backyard would moo, ‘m-a-w……..’ in deep resonance that would resemble the muted solo of a sax; the long blare of the express train hauled by an electric locomotive at a distance, sounding like a trumpet heard from the ensemble of a a brass band. The tiny sparrows hopping up and down in carefree merriment would chirp and chirp and chirp, in contentment of such a simple act. The Nature has place for even such meek birds and their little, periodic, quintessential tweets.
The lady working her dry grinder for fresh powder of black pepper or whatever will handle it as if it were a musical instrument. At the first turn of speed, if the grinder is in top factory fresh condition, it would jump to life making sudden whirring noises and work up torque as the knob is turned up. At full speed, running for the duration decided by the Queen of the Kitchen, it will sound with uniform resonance, delightfully musical to the ears of the hungry man waiting for the lady’s call, ‘elai pottachchu, sappida vaango.’
A dhoti or sari, dipped in water, and beaten on the raised stone adjacent to the well, usually in the sleepy afternoons, will invariably conform to the staccato, ‘that, that, that, that and that and subsequent collection of the cloth in both hands and wringing them to rid of the soap water, will sound like the cry of relief by the linen escaping further thrashing, for having gone bad and collecting so much of dirt and stain. This may no longer be heard as the washing machine pulsating like a marine engine, and revving up now and then that would put to shame a garbage truck, is replacing all the stone slabs.
The sharp tinkle of the hand-bell from the puja room in hurried but pleasing bursts during aarthi will be heard like the school bell when the geography or history period will be mercifully over during a sleepy, summer afternoon; or more comparatively, when the cinema theatre would signal the tickets counter had opened, in particular, for the first-day-first-show.
Perhaps no other sound Is comparable to the rhythmic beat of the lub dub, lub dub of the heart of a patient devoid of symptoms of tachycardia, bradycardia or murmur, when his doctor would listen attentively through his stethoscope, after he had mended, medicated and set right the organ under the rib cage of that human being. Almighty God would have engraved an installed capacity of hundred years on the pericardium. The doctor, His emissary would have done his very best to make it pump rhythmically till that benchmark.
(J. S. Raghavan is bilingual humour writer)
